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Two  Missionary  Priests 
AT  Mackinac. 


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The  Parish  Register  at 

MlCHlLIMACKlNAC. 


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TWO  MISSIONARY  PRIESTS 
^ "AT  MACKINAC, 

A  LECTURE  DELIVERED  AT  THE  VILLAGE  OF  MACKINAC  FOR  THE  BENEFIT  OF  ST.  ANNE'S  MISSION, 
IN  AUGUST,  1888. 


The  Parish  Register  of  the  Mission  of 

MlCHILIMACKINAC, 

A  PAPER  READ  BEFORE  THE  CHICAGO  LITERARY  CLUB  IN  MARCH,  1889. 


EDWARD  OSGOOD   BROWN. 


CHICAGO: 

BARNARD    &    GUNTHORP'PRINTERS. 
1889. 


MBMX^ 


MOBSe  STerHEM^ 


TWO  MISSIONARY  PRIESTS  AT  MACKINAC. 


MOST  of  us,  I  suppose,  who  come  to  Mackinac  are  in- 
duced to  do  so  chiefly,  and  perhaps  altogether,  by  its 
natural  characteristics.  The  invigorating  air,  the  extended  and 
beautiful  land  and  water  view,  the  iron  in  these  northern  rills, 
the  health  that  is  borne  upon  the  breeze,  the  pines,  those 
"trees  of  healing,"  these  are  the  things  that  draw  us  from  the 
crowded  market  place  or  forum,  from  the  cities'  dust  and  cin- 
ders, and  keep  us  lingering  here  dehghted,  until  duty  relent- 
lessly calls  us  home  again. 

But  for  all  that,  I  venture  to  think  that  there  is  hardly  one 
of  us  who  does  not  consciously  or  unconsciously  feel  the  power 
of  that  human  sympathy  which — as  Ruskin  has  in  one  of  his 
papers  beautifully  set  forth — glorifies  the  Alps  and  the  Rhine 
and  makes  them  to  the  traveler  far  surpassing  in  interest 
and  attraction  the  Sierras  and  the  Amazon.  And  here  in 
Mackinac,  to  those  who  know  and  are  touched  by  the  interest 
of  its  history,  we  may  and  must  feel  keenly  this  sympathy.  As 
I  walk  on  the  bluffs  and  look  out  on  the  beautiful  panorama 
spread  out  before  me,  this  fairy  isle  itself,  and  the  whole  fair 
country  around  about,  once  known  as  Michilimackinac,  the 
winding  shores  and  the  heavy  woods  of  the  Northern  and 
Southern .  Peninsulas,  the  silver  straits  between,  and  the  low- 


590119 


lying   islands  near,   my  thoughts  fly   back   from  the  natural 
beauties  around  me  to  the  distant  past,  and 

"Visions  of  the  days  departed,  shadowy  phantoms  fill  my  brain, 
They  who  live  in  history  only,  seem  to  walk  the  earth  again." 

For  MichiHmackinac  was  two  hundred  years  ago  the  centre 
of  human  effort,  as  grand,  as  noble,  and  to  my  mind  as  interest- 
ing and  romantic,  too,  as  ever  can  be  associated  with  Swiss 
mountain  or  German  river. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  in  this  paper  to  enter  into  any  general 
description  or  panegyric  of  the  Jesuit  missions  in  North 
America.  1  only  want  to  remind  you  that  even  before  the  May- 
flower entered  Massachusetts  Bay,  the  Priests  of  the  Society 
had  carried,  not  with  a  blare  of  trumpets  but  with  the  solemn 
tones  of  the  Gregorian  chant,  the  cross  and  Xh^Jieur  de  lis  to- 
gether into  the  wilderness  of  Maine  and  Canada.  In  all  this 
great  North  Western  country  never  a  river  nor  an  inland  sea 
was  explored,  never  a  cape  nor  a  headland  turned  or  doubled 
but  it  was  a  black-gowned  Jesuit  father,  in  his  birch  canoe 
armed  with  his  crucifix  and  his  breviary,  who  led  the  way.  In 
these  later  days,  repairing  the  neglect  of  two  hundred  years, 
historians  like  Dr.  Shea  and  Mr.  Parkman  have  told  this  story 
so  often  and  so  well,  that  these  men  have  received  the  honor 
so  justly  their  due,  and  have  obtained  perchance  what  they 
never  sought,  an  earthly  immortality. 

For  although  these  priests  were  explorers,  adventurers  and 
discoverers,  heroes  in  many  a  physical  danger  and  many  a  hair- 
breadth escape,  it  was  no  earthly  glory  they  coveted.  They 
came,  devoted,  eager,  intense,  with  but  one  great  object  be- 
fore their  hearts  and  eyes,  to  snatch  from  everlasting  misery, 
the  poor  and  ignorant  and  wicked;  to  set  before  those  who 


were  in  darkness  a  great  light;  to  break  to  those  who  were  in 
the  shadow  of  death  the  bread  of  life  eternal. 

They  received,  so  far  as  this  world  went,  the  reward  of 
their  virtual  martyrdom  in  life,  their  actual  martyrdom  often, 
in  their  deaths,  by  seeing  the  foundations  laid,  as  they  believed, 
of  a  Christian  Empire  of  the  Huron  and  Algonquin  peoples;  by 
hearing  hymns  to  the  Virgin  sung  in  tongues  unknown  to  civ- 
ilization; by  bestowing  upon  the  humblest  savage  neophyte  in 
the  sacred  wafer,  all  that  the  Church  could  give  to  the  might- 
iest kings  of  Europe. 

Was  not  this  bloodless  crusade  worthy  all  the  adornments  of 
historic  art  in  literature  or  painting? 

But  it  is  not  alone  with  the  Jesuit  Missions  that  the  romance 
in  the  history  of  Michilimackinac  is  connected. 

A  Httle  later  it  was  from  the  neighborhood  of  this  region 
here,  as  the  centre  in  the  north,  as  from  Kaskaskia  and  old 
Fort  Chartres,  on  the  Mississippi,  in  the  south,  that  the  dominion 
of  France  in  the  New  World  radiated.  It  was  from  here  that 
the  great  king  was,  by  his  viceroys  and  commanders,  to  sit  in 
power  and  do  justice  and  equity  throughout  this  fair  northern 
lake  country. 

There  came  a  time  when  "  bigots  and  lackeys  and  pan- 
ders, the  fortunes  of  France  had  undone,"  when  this  power,  in 
the  beginning  so  great,  promising  so  much  for  the  glory  of 
France,  nay,  for  civilization  and  humanity,  was  met,  opposed 
and  in  the  providence  of  God,  overcome,  by  the  less  promising, 
the  more  material,  the  harder  and  less  attractive  English  civ- 
ilization from  the  eastern  coast. 

We  most  of  us  at  least  rejoice  in  the  result,  but  we  can  none  of 
us  I  think  forbear  sympathy  with  or  withhold  our  interest  from 


the  vanquished,  nor  can  we  fail  to  recognize  that  nobler  minds 
and  aims  seemed  to  rule  those  who  declared  in  the  name  of 
Louis  XIV.  that  "  His  majesty  could  annex  no  country  to  his 
crown,  without  making  it  his  chief  care  to  establish  the  Christian 
religion  therein;"  than  those  who  could  with  cold  calculation, 
like  some  of  the  Governors  of  Massachusetts  Bay  and  Virginia, 
declare  themselves  opposed  to  the  civilization  and  education 
of  the  Indians  on  the  ground  that  it  might  injure  the  trade  and 
material  interests  of  the  colonies. 

On  June  14,  1671,  at  the  Sault  Saint  Marie,  from  here  not 
fifty  miles  to  the  north  as  the  crow  flies,  while  representatives 
of  fourteen  tribes  of  Indians  looked  on  in  wonder,  and  four 
Jesuit  Fathers  led  the  French  men-at-arms  in  the  singing  of 
the  Vexilla  Regis,  the  Sieur  de  Saint  Lusson,  commanding  in 
this  region  for  the  king,  set  up  side  by  side  a  great  wooden 
cross,  and  a  pillar  to  which  were  attached  the  royal  arms  of 
France.  Then  drawing  his  sword  and  raising  it  towards  Heaven, 
he  exclaimed: 

"  In  the  name  of  the  Most  High,  Mighty  and  Redoubled 
Monarch,  Louis,  Fourteenth  of  that  name,  most  Christian 
King  of  France  and  of  Navarre,  I  take  possession  of  this  place 
Sainte  Marie  du  Sault,  as  also  of  lakes  Huron  and  Superior, 
the  island  of  Manitoulin,  and  all  the  countries,  rivers,  lakes  and 
streams  contiguous  and  adjacent  thereunto,  both  those  which 
have  been  discovered,  and  those  which  may  be  discovered 
hereafter,  in  all  their  length  and  breadth,  bounded  on  the  one 
side  by  the  seas  of  the  north  and  west  and  on  the  others  by  the 
south  sea,  declaring  to  the  natives  thereof  that  from  this  time 
forth  they  are  the  vassals  of  his  Majesty,  bound  to  obey  his  laws 
and  follow  his  customs,  promising  them  on  his  part  all  succor 


and  protection  against  the  intrusions  and  invasions  of  their 
enemies,  declaring  to  all  other  potentates,  princes,  sovereigns, 
states  and  republics,  to  them  and  their  subjects,  that  they  can- 
not and  are  not  to  seize  or  settle  upon  any  parts  of  the  afore- 
said countries  save  only  under  the  good  pleasure  of  His  Most 
Christian  Majesty  and  of  him  who  will  govern  in  his  behalf, 
and  this  on  pain  of  incurring  the  resentment  and  the  efforts  of 
his  arms.     Long  live  the  King  ! " 

These  were  high-sounding  w^ords  indeed,  but  when  spoken, 
they  were  no  idle  ones.  Not  only  the  power  of  the  greatest 
kingdom  on  earth  was  pledged  to  make  them  effective,  but  the 
Holy  Church  herself,  the  Mother  of  Kings,  seemed  to  stand 
behind  them  in  blessing  and  confirmation. 

We  know  what  remains  of  it  all.  But  it  adds  to  the  charm 
of  life  at  Mackinac  to  me,  that  inevitably  my  thoughts  are  car- 
ried back  to  that  June  day  and  its  pageant,  two  hundred  years 
ago,  when  I  hear  upon  the  lips  of  some  wandering  half-breed, 
still  lingering  the  accents  of  France;  and  when  at  the  Mission 
of  St.  Anne  the  gospel  is  read  in  French  as  well  as  in  English, 
and  I  am  reminded  that  Holy  Church  has  not  forgotten  her 
part  of  the  duty  then  assumed,  although  performed  now  for 
so  few  of  her  lowliest  children. 

And  even  here  does  not  end  the  charm  of  the  historical  as- 
sociation which  hovers  about  Mackinac. 

A  half  century  and  more  after  the  dominion  of  France  in 
this  new  world  had  waned,  flickered  and  gone  out,  these 
Straits  of  Michilimackinac  were  still  the  scene  of  romantic  and 
absorbing  adventure.  Hither  thronged  still  the  Indian  tribes 
of  the  West,  no  longer  untouched  by  the  greed  for  gain  or  the 
vices  of  civilization,  but  from  far   and   near,  seeking  at  Michili- 


mackinac  to  profitably  exchange  the  products  of  the  chase 
for  the  things  that  had  become  indispensable  to  their  life,  and 
hither  came  to  meet  them  and  barter  with  them,  the  fearless 
spirits  of  the  frontier,  skilled  alike  in  woodcraft  and  in  trade, 
but  hardly  less  wild  and  hardy  than  their  savage  customers. 

The  place  was  busy,  full  of  a  restless  activity  and  energy, 
which  made  it  important  and  interesting  when  the  site  of  the 
great  metropolitan  city  which  lies  now  350  miles  to  the  south 
was  but  the  Chicago  portage,  an  outpost  of  Michilimackinac. 

I  have  lately  examined  with  great  interest  the  parish  reg- 
isters of  the  mission  here — the  Mission  of  St.  Anne  de  Mich- 
ilimackinac, and  as  I  read  with  outward  eye  the  mere 
record  of  baptisms  and  marriages  and  burials  from  1695  to 
the  present  day,  between  the  lines  I  seemed  to  see  with  men- 
tal vision,  the  whole  strange  story  of  the  place,  with  its  record 
of  high  aims  and  noble  purposes,  seemingly  thwarted  and 
failing,  only  to  result  in  the  end  in  success  far  beyond  the 
early  dreams  of  priest  or  soldier. 

My  mind  was  full  of  this,  when  my  friend,  the  parish 
priest,  appealed  to  me  to  prepare  a  paper  for  an  entertainment 
to  be  given  for  the  benefit  of  the  mission,  a  request  I  was 
glad  to  accede  to. 

I  determined  for  this  paper  then  to  attempt  a  brief  sketch 
of  two  figures  in  the  history  of  this  mission,  equally,  it  seems 
to  me,  worthy  our  regard  and  admiration;  both,  although  more 
than  a  century  apart — servants  at  the  altar  here;  both  French- 
men of  illustrious  descent,  and  of  the  older  and  nobler  school 
of  thought  and  manners — one,  the  very  founder  of  the  mission 
here — the  prototype  in  a  line  of  earnest  and  devoted  men  of 
the  earlier  time,  who  carried  on   the  work  he  gloriously  be- 


gan;  the  other  at  once  the  closing  figure  of  that  Hne,  and  the 
herald  and  pioneer  in  a  new  regime  and  a  new  order,  a  con- 
necting link  in  other  words,  binding  the  church  in  the  west, 
which  was  the  companion  and  adjunct  of  French  civilization 
and  dominion,  with  the  Catholic  Church  in  America  as  it 
stands  to-day,  chiefly  English  speaking  and  English  thinking, 
its  altars  served  with  loyal  and  patriotic  lovers  of  American 
ideas   and  American  institutions,  a  free  church  in  a  free  state. 

The  first  of  these  men  whom  I  have  described,  you,  of 
course,  could  name.  It  could  be  no  other  than  the  Jesuit, 
Jacques  Marquette,  to  whom  belongs  the  high  honor  of  being 
the  first  explorer  and  discoverer  (after  De  Soto)  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi river  and  valley,  and  of  whose  character  and  life,  his 
zeal,  his  ability  and  his  devotion  there  has  been  much  written 
and  said  since  the  discovery  and  publication  of  his  manuscript 
journals  by  that  prince  among  American  scholars,  Dr.  John 
Gilmary  Shea. 

The  second  one  of  whom  I  would  speak  is  perhaps  less 
known  to  most  of  you,  but  to  my  mind,  as  I  have  said,  he  is 
equally  an  interesting  and  admirable  figure  in  the  history  of 
the  American  Church.  It  is  the  Sulpician  priest,  Gabriel 
Richard. 

The  life  and  labors  of  these  two  men  then,  I  shall  attempt 
briefly  to  sketch  for  you  to-night. 


Jacques  Marquette  was  born  in  1637,  in  the  city  of  Laon,  a 
fortified  city  of  France,  on  the  mountain  side  near  the  river 
Oise. 

His  family  was  distinguished  and  ancient,  entitled  to   armo- 


rial  bearings,  and  furnishing  most  of  the  local  officers  of  the 
crown  in  the  city  and  the  department  around.  A  more  inter- 
esting fact  to  us  is  that  three  of  this  same  family  from  the  same 
region  of  country  served  and  died  in  the  French  army  in 
America,  during  the  Revolutionary  war. 

We  are  told  that  his  mother  was  Rose  de  la  Salle,  and  re- 
lated to  Jean  Baptiste  de  la  Salle,  the  founder  of  the  Brothers 
of  The  Christian  Schools,  for  centuries  as  it  is  to-da}^  the 
greatest  and  most  efficient  institute  in  the  world  for  the  gra- 
tuitous instruction  of  the  young.  I  do  not  know  that  any  in- 
vestigation has  ever  been  made  to  determine  whether  or  not 
he  was  in  the  same  line  related  to  that  paladin  of  adventurous 
discovery,  who  with  dauntless  courage  and  miraculous  endu- 
rance, pursued  to  the  end  the  explorations  which  Marquette 
began,  that  "  heart  of  oak  and  frame  of  iron,"  Robert  Cavalier 
de  la  Salle,  a  native  of  the  same  part  of  France.  It  w^ould  be 
interesting  to  know. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen  Jacques  Marquette  entered  the  So- 
ciety of  Jesus.  Filled  with  the  most  intense  devotion  to  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  with  his  piety  shaped  in  the  ecstatic  school  of 
Loyola  and  his  mind  inflamed  with  the  reports  which  the 
fathers  on  the  various  missions  were  sending  lo  their  superiors 
in  France,  his  whole  soul  was  bent  even  during  his  long  no- 
vitiate upon  some  foreign  mission,  and  in  1666,  he  eagerly 
sought  and  received  the  orders  which  sent  him  across  an 
almost  unknown  ocean  to  labor  among  the  Indians  of  North 
America. 

Arriving  in  September  of  that  year  at  Quebec,  he  applied 
himself  immediately  to  the  study  of  the  Indian  languages  in 
use  among  the  tribes  under  the  especial  care  of  the  already 


established  missions.  He  seems  to  have  had  wonderful  lin- 
guistic ability,  and  must  also  have  had  wonderful  applica- 
tion, for  of  these  most  difficult  savage  dialects  he  had  mastered 
six,  so  as  to  speak  them  with  considerable  fluency,  when,  in 
April,  1668,  Father  Dablon,  the  superior  of  the  missions, 
ordered  him  to  the  Ottawa  mission,  established  at  the  Sault  Ste. 
Marie.  After  a  voyage  of  great  difficulty  and  hardship  he 
arrived  at  this  place,  and  there,  afterward  joined  by  Dablon 
himself,  Marquette  labored  among  the  two  thousand  Indians  of 
various  tribes  who,  attracted  by  the  excellent  fishing,  there 
frequently  assembled,  to  separate  from  time  to  time  for  their 
periodical  hunting  parties  through  the  wilderness.  He  found 
them  docile  and  easily  induced  to  accept  his  guidance.  But 
his  zeal  and  energy  and  his  unusual  linguistic  ability,  so  neces- 
sary for  a  successful  missionary,  marked  him  out  for  a  more 
difficult  undertaking  still,  and  from  the  Sault  he  was  sent  in 
August,  1669,  to  the  mission  of  the  Saint  Esprit,  at  Lapointe, 
near  the  western  end  of  Lake  Superior.  Here  his  task  was 
more  discouraging  at  first,  for  his  knowledge  of  the  dialect 
there  most  used  was  not  so  perfect,  but  he  soon  had  acquired 
over  his  flock,  composed  partly  of  Ottawas  and  partly  of 
Hurons,  a  great  and  growing  influence. 

And  now  through  parties  of  Illinois  and  Sioux,  who  came 
from  far  to  the  westward,  beyond  the  Mississippi  river,  Mar- 
quette began  to  hear  of  the  Great  River,  broad,  deep,  beautiful, 
compared  by  these  men  who  knew  them  both,  to  the  St.  *Law- 
rence.  They  told  him,  also,  of  the  many  tribes  which  dwelt 
along  its  banks,  and  his  mind  was  filled  with  a  burning  desire 
to  preach  to  them  the  gospel  they  had  never  heard. 

Always  prudent,  however,  in  his  intrepidity,  anxious,  as  he 


IG 

himself  says,  that  if  his  expedition  already  planned  must  be 
dangerous  it  should  riot  be  foolhardy,  from  this  time  on,  Mar- 
quette, from  every  Indian  who  spoke  to  him  of  the  Mississippi, 
begged  all  the  information  he  could  get,  and  from  many  took 
rude  sketches  of  the  river  and  its  principal  tributaries,  so  far  as 
they  were  known  to  his  informant. 

Already  the  way  of  reaching  this  great  river  by  the  stream 
now  called  the  Wisconsin  was  known  to  the  Jesuit  Fathers. 
From  the  Fox  river  running  into  Green  Bay,  to  the  headwat- 
ers of  the  Wisconsin  running  into  the  Mississippi,  there  is  a 
comparatively  easy  portage  near  the  place  where  now  in  Wis- 
consin stands  the  town  of  that  name.  Over  this  portage, 
AUouez,  one  of  Marquette's  fellow  missionaries,  in  one  of  his 
tours  had  lately  gone,  finding  in  the  Wisconsin  a  beautiful 
river,  he  says  in  his  report,  running  south-west,  and  in  the  space 
of  a  six  days'  journey,  as  he  was  told,  joining  the  great  river 
of  which  he  had  heard  so  much. 

But  Marquette  did  not  at  first  expect  to  take  this  route. 
His  Illinois  mission  and  the  exploration  of  the  Mississippi  he 
intended  to  make  by  joining  in  the  autumn  a  band  of  the  Illinois, 
who  from  the  west  came  each  year  by  land  to  Lapointe,  crossing 
the  Mississippi  in  their  journey.  But  these  expectations  were 
doomed  to  disappointment,  for  aroused  to  resentment  by 
alleged  injuries  inflicted  on  them  by  the  Ottawas  and  Hurons, 
the  Sioux,  always  fierce  and  revengeful,  broke  into  open  war 
with  the  tribes  who  formed  Father  Marquette's  flock  at  La- 
pointe. The  Ottawas  and  Hurons  were  no  more  able  to  with- 
stand the  Sioux  from  the  west,  than  they  had  been  a  quarter 
of  a  century  before  the  Iroquois  from  the  east,  and  they  fled 
in  dismay  from  Lapointe,  separating  as  they  went.  The 
Ottawas  took  refuge  in  the  Island  of  Manitoulin — the  Hurons, 


IF 

remembering  that  years  before  they  had  found  temporary 
respite  from  Iroquois  prosecution,  and  an  abundance  of  game 
and  fish,  at  and  near  the  Island  of  Michilimackinac,  came  here 
for  the  second  time  to  find  refuge; and  here  in  167 1  came  with 
them  their  devoted  priest  and  teacher,  Jacques  Marquette. 

It  is  impossible  to  tell  with  absolute  certainty  even  on  the 
closest  investigation,  whether  it  was  on  the  Island  of  Mackinac, 
or  on  the  mainland  known  now  as  Point  St.  Ignace,  that  Father 
Marquette  and  his  Indian  flock  first  established  themselves. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  was  on  the  island  that  the  first 
rendezvous  was  made,  but  that  very  shortly  after,  it  was 
thought  best  to  make  the  permanent  settlement  upon  the 
mainland,  and  that  there,  in  1672,  a  chapel  had  been  built  sur- 
rounded by  the  cabins  of  the  Indians,  the  whole  village  being 
enclosed  within  a  stockade,  for  better  protection  against 
enemies. 

Father  Charlevoix,  and  following  him  evidently,  later  writers 
have  expressed  surprise  at  Father  Marquette's  selecting  what 
they  term  so  undesirable  a  place  for  his  mission  and  the  settle- 
ment of  the  Hurons.  To  justify  their  surprise  they  speak  of 
the  intense  cold  and  the  sterility  of  the  soil. 

Charlevoix  says  that  Father  Marquette  determined  the  choice 
of  the  spot,  but  Father  Marquette  himself  says  that  the  In- 
dians had  previously  signified  their  design  to  settle  here,  led 
by  the  abundance  of  game,  the  great  quantity  of  fish  and  the 
adaptability  of  the  soil  for  maize,  the  Indian's  chief  agricult- 
ural product. 

But  apart  from  the  question  whether  Father  Marquette 
located  the  Indians  rather  than  the  Indians  Father  Marquette, 
Charlevoix  seems  to  me  to  speak  with  less  sagacity  than  is 
usual  in    a  Jesuit  priest,  in  so  expressing  himself.     If  Father 


12 

Marquette  did  determine  the  place  of  settlement,  it  seems  to 
me  easy  to  understand. 

These  missionaries  were  men  of  cultivation,  learning  and  re- 
finement. Their  sense  of  the  beautiful  and  their  love  for  it,  we 
may  be  sure  were  strong.  For  the  sake  of  their  holy  religion, 
and  in  their  burning  zeal,  they  had  voluntarily  exiled  themselves 
from  the  world  of  art  and  artistic  beauty.  The  rainbow  light 
that  falls  through  cathedral  windows,  the  almost  celestial 
music  that  trembles  through  the  aisles,  the  painting  and  the 
architecture  that  aid  to  raise  the  enrapt  soul  from  earth  to 
heaven,  they  had  left  behind  in  Europe  forever.  They  had 
doomed  themselves  to  much  that  was  hateful  and  disgusting, 
to  sodden  forests  and  smoky  wigwams,  to  filthy  food  and  un- 
clean companions,  but  they  preserved,  as  all  their  relations  and 
*  all  their  history  shows,  their  love  of  beauty;  nature  to  them 
must  take  the  place  of  art.  Would  it  have  been  strange  that 
Father  Marquette  should  have  been  glad  to  settle  where  alter- 
nated the  glories  of  a  wonderfully  beautiful  winter  landscape, 
with  those  no  less  grand  of  these  shining  summer  seas? 
On  the  contrary,  we  may  well  imagine  him,  when  first  he 
gazed  from  the  bluffs  upon  this  country  called  Michilimackinac, 
exclaiming,  as  Scott  makes  King  James,  of  Loch  Katrina: 

"  And  what  a  scene  were  here,     *     *     * 
For  princely  pomp  or  churchman's  pride! 
On  this  bold  brow  a  lordly  tower, 
In  that  soft  vale  a  lady's  bower! 
On  yonder  meadow  far  away, 
The  turrets  of  a  cloister  gray ! 
How  blithely  might  the  bugle  horn 
Chide  on  this  Lake  the  lingering  morn ! 
And  when  the  midnight  moon  should  lave 
Her  forehead  in  the  silver  wave, 
How  solemn  on  the  ear  would  come 
The  holy  matin's  distant  hum !" 


13 

Until  the  17th  of  May,  1673,  Marquette  labored  at  this  mis- 
sion with  abundant  and  encouraging  results,  to  judge  from  his 
letter  to  his  superior  in  1672.  He  says  that  he  had  almost 
five  hundred  Indians  about  him,  who  wished  to  be  Christians, 
who  listened  with  eagerness  to  his  teaching,  who  brought  their 
children  to  the  chapel  to  be  baptized,  and  came  regularly  to 
prayers.  Be  the  wind  or  cold  what  it  might,  many  Indians 
came  twice  a  day  to  the  chapel.  When  he  was  obliged  to  go 
to  the  Sault  for  a  fortnight,  they  counted  the  days  of  his  ab- 
sence, repaired  to  the  chapel  for  prayers  as  though  he  were 
present  and  welcomed  him  back  with  joy. 

"  The  minds,"  he  writes,  "  of  the  Indians  here  are  now 
more  mild,  tractable  and  better  disposed  to  receive  instruction 
than  in  any  other  part." 

But  the  Illinois  mission  that  he  had  planned,  and  the  Great 
River  that  he  w'ished  to  explore  and  dedicate  to  Mary,  were  al- 
ways in  his  thoughts,  and  it  was  with  great  joy  that  in  the 
spring  of  1673,  he  heard  that  he  had  been  ordered  by  his  su- 
perior to  turn  over  the  mission  at  Michilimackinac  to  a  suc- 
cessor and  himself  accompany  Louis  Joliet,  designated  by  the 
governor  of  Canada,  in  the  exploration  of  the  Mississippi. 

On  the  17th  of  May,  1673,  he  embarked  from  Michilimacki- 
nac with  Joliet  and  five  men,  in  two  birch  canoes,  on  his  famous 
voyage.  Its  chief  purpose  was  to  learn  of  the  tribes  who 
dw^elt  along  the  banks  of  the  great  river,  to  map  it,  with  its 
principal  tributaries,  to  determine  its  general  direction  and  to 
ascertain  w^here  it  emptied,  whether  as  some  thought  into  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  or  as  more  supposed  into  the  Gulf  of  Cali- 
fornia. That  it  ran  through  1,500  miles  of  country  to  empty 
itself  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  no  one,  it  would  seem,  suspected. 


14 

I  have  not  time  as  I  would  like  to  detail  this  first  voyage 
down  the  Mississippi,  but  to  all  of  you,  if  you  have  not  read  it, 
I  commend  the  story  of  the  voyage  as  you  will  find  it  in 
Parkman's  Discovery  of  the  Great  West,  or  better  still  in  the 
literal  translation  of  Marquette's  own  report  to  be  found  in 
Shea's  Discovery  and  Exploration  of  the  Mississippi. 

There  you  will  read  with  pleasure,  I  know,  how  following 
the  north  shore  of  Lake  Michigan  where  the  wilderness  in 
places  is  as  wild  now  as  then,  they  ascended  Fox  river  from 
Green  Bay,  and  made  the  portage  to  the  headwaters  of  the 
Wisconsin,  how  there  they  bade  adieu  with  brave  hearts  to  the 
waters  that  connected  them  with  Quebec  and  Europe,  and 
kneeling  to  offer  in  a  new  devotion  their  lives  and  their  labors, 
their  discoveries  and  all  their  undertakings  to  the  Blessed  Vir- 
gin, launched  themselves  upon  the  stream  that  ran  to  the 
Mississippi  and  then  they  knew  not  where,  to  countries  un- 
known and  unnamed. 

You  will  see  how  carefully  they  noted  the  physical  char- 
acteristics of  the  river  and  the  country  and  the  social  customs  of 
the  tribes  they  found,  how  intrepidly  they  met  hostile  savages 
and  hideous  wild  beasts,  how  zealously  they  preached  Christ 
and  his  Church  to  those  who  would  hear,  how  they  wondered 
at  the  pictured  monsters  on  the  cliffs  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Missouri,  (which  the  late  Judge  Breese  of  Illinois,  in  1842, 
said  were  still  the  wonder  of  travelers,  and  which  seem  in 
1850  to  have  been  in  some  parts  visible,  but  which  Parkman 
declares  in  his  time  had  given  place  to  a  mammoth  advertise- 
ment of  Plantation  Bitters,)  how  then  the  Missouri  with  its 
turbid  floods  came  near  to  swamping  their  frail  boats,  how 
finally  they  reached  the  mouth   of  the  stream   now  called  the 


15 

Arkansas,  and  having  accomplished  the  object  of  their  mission, 
and  made  sure  of  the  further  course  of  the  river,  and  that  its 
mouth  was  at  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  where,  as  they  knew,  the 
Spaniard  had  fortifications  and  settlements,  turned  back  and 
paddled  the  weary  length  of  the  Mississippi  again,  to  its  junc- 
tion with  the  Illinois,  The  journey  too  up  the  Illinois  river, 
which  the  Indians  told  them  was  a  nearer  and  easier  route  to 
Lake  Michigan  than  the  Wisconsin,  and  the  villages  of  the 
Illinois  which  they  found  and  preached  to,  and  to  w^hich 
Marquette  promised  to  return  the  following  year,  are  most 
graphically  described;  described  like  the  rest  of  the  journey, 
tersely,  simply  and  unpretendingly  as  by  a  scholar  and  a  man 
of  careful  observation  and  practical  sense.  So,  too,  is  told  the 
portage  through  Mud  Lake,  from  the  Desplaines  to  the  Chi- 
cago, from  which,  perhaps,  the  first  white  men  who  were  ever 
on  the  site  of  Chicago,  Marquette  and  his  companions  emerged 
on  Lake  Michigan  and  rowed  along  its  western  shore  until 
they  reached  Green  Ba}-  and  the  mission  of  St.  Francis 
Xavier. 

This  voyage  was  just  four  months  long,  and  in  it  the 
travelers  had  paddled  their  frail  barks  over  2,700  miles. 

One  detail  only  of  this  voyage  I  would  quote  from  Father 
Marquette's  own  account  that  I  may  call  attention  to  how 
beautifully  it  has  since  been  used  in  American  literature. 

On  the  arrival  at  the  first  village  of  Illinois,  which  they 
visited  on  their  journey,  Marquette  had  declared  to  them  with 
the  customary  presents  and  symboHc  language,  that  he  came 
in  peace,  that  he  came  to  declare  to  them  the  greatness  and 
goodness  of  the  true  God,  and  that  the  great  chief  of  the 
French  had  subdued  the  Iroquois  and  spread  peace  every- 
where. 


i6 

"  When  I  had  finished  my  speech,"  says  Father  Marquette, 
*'  the  sachem  arose  and  laying  his  hand  on  the  head  of  a  little 
slave  whom  he  was  about  to  give  us,  spoke  thus:  I  thank 
thee,  Black  Gown,  and  thee.  Frenchmen,  for  taking  so  much 
pains  to  come  and  visit  us;  never  has  the  earth  been  so  beau- 
tiful nor  the  sun  so  bright  as  to-day,  never  has  our  river  been 
so  calm  nor  so  free  from  rocks,  which  3^our  canoes  have  re- 
moved as  they  passed;  never  has  our  tobacco  had  so  fine  a 
flavor  nor  our  corn  appeared  so  beautiful  as  we  behold  it  to- 
day. Here  is  my  son,  that  I  give  thee,  that  thou  mayst  know 
my  heart;  I  pray  thee  to  take  pity  on  me  and  all  my  nation. 
Thow  knowest  the  Great  Spirit  who  has  made  us  all;  thou 
speakest  to  him  and  hearest  his  word;  ask  him  to  give  me  life 
and  health,  and  come  and  dwell  with  us  that  we  may  know  him." 

Longfellow,  recognizing  the  beauty  of  this  historical  speech, 
has  paraphrased  it,  or  indeed  almost  literally  transcribed  it,  in 
Hiawatha.  You  will  remember  the  visit  of  the  Black  Robe 
to  Hiawatha  and  his  people: 

"  O'er  the  water,  floating,  flying, 

Something  in  the  hazy  distance, 

Something  in  the  mists  of  morning, 

Loomed  and  lifted  from  the  water. 

Now  seemed  floating,  now  seemed  flying. 

Coming  nearer,  nearer,  nearer. 

Was  it  Shingebis,  the  diver, 

Or  the  pelican,  the  Shada, 

Or  the  heron,  the  Shuhshiih-gah, 

Or  the  white  goose,  Wau-be-wawa, 

With  the  water  dripping,  flashing. 

From  its  glossy  neck  and  feathers? 

It  was  neither  goose  nor  diver, 

Neither  pelican  nor  heron. 

O'er  the  water  floating,  flying, 

Through  the  shining  mist  of  morning. 

But  a  birch  canoe  with  paddles. 


17 


Rising,  sinking  on  the  water, 

Dripping,  flashing  in  the  sunshine; 

And  within  it  came  a  people. 

From  the  distant  land  of  Wabun, 

From  the  farthest  realms  of  morning. 

Came  the  Black  Robe  chief,  the  Prophet, 

He,  the  Priest  of  Prayer,  the  Pale  Face, 

With  his  guides  and  his  companions. 

And  the  noble  Hiawatha, 

With  his  hands  aloft  extended, 

Held  aloft  in  sign  of  welcome, 

Waited,  full  of  exultation, 

Till  the  birch  canoe  with  paddles 

Grated  on  the  shining  pebbles. 

Stranded  on  the  sandy  margin. 

Till  the  Black  Robe  chief,  the  Pale  Face, 

With  the  cross  upon  his  bosom, 

Landed  on  the  sandy  margin. 

Then  the  joyous  Hiawatha 

Cried  aloud  and  spake  in  this  wise : 

Beautiful  is  the  sun,  O  strangers. 

When  you  come  so  far  to  see  us; 

All  our  town  in  peace  awaits  you, 

All  our  doors  stand  open  for  you ; 

You  shall  enter  all  our  wigwams. 

For  the  heart's  right  hand  we  give  you. 

Never  bloomed  the  earth  so  gayly, 

Never  shone  the  sun  so  brightly. 

As  to-day  they  shine  and  blossom 

When  you  come  so  far  to  see  us ! 

Never  was  our  lake  so  tranquil. 

Nor  so  free  from  rocks  and  sand-bars ; 

For,  your  birch  canoe  in  passing, 

Has  removed  both  rock  and  sand-bar! 

Never  before  had  our  tobacco 

Such  a  sweet  and  pleasant  flavor; 

Never  the  broad  leaves  of  our  corn  fields 

Were  so  beautiful  to  look  on 

As  they  seem  to  us  this  morning 

When  you  come  so  far  to  see  us ! 

And  the  Black  Robe  Chief  made  answer, 

Stammered  in  his  speech  a  little, 

Speaking  words  yet  unfamiliar; 


i8 

Peace  be  with  you  Hiawatha, 
Peace  be  with  you  and  your  people; 
Peace  of  prayer  and  peace  of  pardon, 
Peace  of  Christ  and  joy  of  Mary!" 

Marquette  was  attacked  by  dysentery  on  his  homeward  voy- 
age, and  day  after  day  lay  exhausted  in  his  canoe,  engaged  in 
prayer  and  holy  meditation.  So  exhausted  and  weakened  was 
he  by  his  toil  and  his  disease,  which  for  a  year  did  not  sensibly 
abate,  that  during  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1673  and  the 
spring  and  summer  following,  he  was  obliged  to  remain  at  the 
mission  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  on  Green  Bay  making  no  attempt 
to  return  to  Michilimackinac,  which  he  doubtless  desired  to 
visit.  It  was  while  he  was  here  that  he  wrote  to  his  superior 
his  account  of  the  voyage.  This  became  of  great  importance 
when,  as  it  unfortunately  happened,  Joliet's  official  report  and 
map  were  lost  by  the  overturning  of  his  canoe  in  the  Lachine 
Rapids  just  as  he  was  approaching  Montreal  at  the  end  of  his 
long  journey. 

This  relation  of  Marquette,  together  with  his  journal  of  the 
later  voyage  of  which  I  am  about  to  speak,  and  some  notes 
concerning  him  by  his  superior,  Father  Dablon,  had  afterward 
a  strange  history.  Although  one  copy  of  the  account  of  the 
Mississippi  voyage  evidently  found  its  way  to  France  and  was 
published  in  a  mutilated  form  in  1681,  another  copy  of  this 
relation  and  the  journal  and  notes  spoken  of,  lay  entirely  un- 
known in  the  library  of  the  Jesuit  College  at  Quebec  until 
about  1800.  When  Canada  became  an  English  dominion,  the 
Jesuits  as  a  religious  order  were  condemned  and  the  reception 
of  new  members  forbidden.  The  last  survivor  of  them.  Father 
Cazot,  before  his  death  about  1800,  took  the  papers  and  archives 
which  lay  in  his  hands  and  turned  them  over  for  safekeeping 


19 

until  happier  times,  to  the  Gray  Nuns  of  the  Hotel  Dieu,  who 
were  not  under  the  ban  of  the  government.  These  ladies  joy- 
fully gave  up  their  charge  to  the  Jesuit  Fathers  who  in  1842 
re-established  the  Society  in  Canada,  and  in  1852  Marquette's 
relation  and  journal  and  the  notes  of  Father  Dablon,  were  by 
Dr.  Shea  brought  to  light  and  published. 

Father  Marquette's  health  having  been  partially,  to  appear- 
ance at  least,  re-established,  he  received  the  orders  which  he 
solicited  to  establish  the  Illinois  mission,  and  on  the  25th  of 
October,  1674,  he  started,  accompanied  by  two  Frenchmen 
("  Engages"  as  these  assistants  to  the  missionaries  were  called) 
and  by  a  number  of  Indians,  for  the  great  village  of  the  Illinois, 
which  he  had  found  on  the  previous  year  on  the  river  of  the 
Illinois,  in  his  journey  from  the  Mississippi  to  Lake  Michigan. 
This  time  the  journey  was  made  down  the  western  shore  of 
Lake  Michigan,  and  Father  Marquette  walked  much  of  the 
way  upon  the  shore,  taking  boat  only  w-hen  rivers  or  bays 
were  to  be  crossed. 

By  the  middle  of  November  his  malady  returned  and  the 
winter  began,  too,  to  close  in  around  the  devoted  wanderers. 
On  the  4th  of  December,  1674,  ^^  reached  the  Chicago 
river,  and  about  six  miles  from  its  mouth,  unable  on  account 
of  his  increasing  illness  to  go  further,  he  and  his  companions 
built  some  kind  of  a  rude  cabin,  and  prepared  to  spend  the 
winter.  This  was  the  first  settlement  upon  the  stream 
where  now  rise  the  towers  of  that  imperial  city,  which  before 
the  century  is  over  w411  number  a  million  inhabitants.  Jacques 
Marquette  was  undoubtedly  the  first  resident  of  Chicago,  a 
claim  in  itself,  had  he  not  other  greater  ones,  to  the  remem- 
brance  of  posterity.     The   record   of  that   winter,  as  told  by 


20 

himself,  is  a  touching  proof  of  the  simple  piety  of  this  saintly  man. 
In  that  forlorn  and  squalid  cabin,  in  ice  and  snow,  living  on 
Indian  corn  and  a  very  little  chance  game  shot  by  his  faithful 
French  companions,  or  brought  to  him  by  two  trappers,  who 
were  camping  within  fifty  miles,  (for  he  had  sent  his  Indians 
away  to  their  destination),  stricken  by  a  wasting  and  a  mortal 
malady,  he  thanks  God  and  the  Blessed  Virgin  for  their  care 
of  him,  which  had  so  comfortably  housed  him,  he  begins  the 
Spiritual  Exercises  of  St.  Ignatius,  he  confesses  his  two  com- 
panions twice  each  week,  he  says  the  Holy  Mass  each  day, 
and  he  regrets  only,  as  he  innocently  remarks,  that  he  was 
able  to  keep  Lent  only  on  Fridays  and  Saturdays.  One 
would  have  thought  that  the  austerest  idea  of  self  sacrifice 
would  have  been  perforce  satisfied  in  this  winter  encampment. 

In  March,  1675,  after  a  novena  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  in 
consequence  of  it  as  he  at  all  events  devoutly  believed,  he 
found  himself  able  to  travel  and  pushed  forward  for  his  pro- 
posed mission  to  the  Illinois.  By  the  Indians,  at  their  village  of 
Kaskaskia,  he  was  received,  as  he  says,  like  an  angel  from 
heaven,  and  during  Holy  Week  he  preached  the  Gospel  to  the 
thousands  there  assembled.  Formally  he  opened  a  mission  to 
be  known  as  that  of  the  Immaculate  Conception,  and  prom- 
ised that  some  black-robed  priest  should  be  sent  to  take  charge 
of  and  prosecute  his  work. 

But  his  strength  was  failing  fast,  he  felt  himself  that  his  sick- 
ness was  mortal,  and  he  bade  therefore  his  Indian  friends  a  sad 
good-bye  and  started  for  his  loved  mission  at  Michilimackinac, 
there  to  make  arrangements  for  his  successor  at  the  mission 
among  the  Illinois  and  then,  as  he  hoped,  to  die  in  the  arms  o£ 
his  brethren. 


21 

From  information  afforded  him  by  the  Indians  whom  he  had 
visited  he  had  come  to  know  of  another  route  to  the  north,  a 
way,  afterward  the  favorite  one  of  LaSalle  in  his  many  jour- 
neys. It  was  by  the  way  of  the  Kankakee  branch  of  the  Illi- 
nois, and  a  portage  thence  to  the  St.  Joseph  River,  flowing  into 
Lake  Michigan  on  its  eastern  shore  at  the  present  site  of  the 
town  of  that  name. 

As  the  party,  Marquette  and  his  two  faithful  companions, 
made  their  way  along  this  shore,  the  good  Father's  strength 
utterly  failed.  He  lay  in  his  boat,  reciting  his  breviary, 
and  his  companions  were  obliged  to  lift  him  ashore  when  they 
made  their  nightly  encampment.  At  last  when  they  ap- 
proached the  promontory  now  known  as  The  Sleeping  Bear, 
where  stands  the  present  city  of  Ludington,  he  could  go  no 
farther.  Carried  ashore  by  his  companions  he  confessed  them 
both;  in  contrition  and  penitence  he  made  his  own  confession  in 
writing,  begging  that  it  should  be  taken  to  his  brethren,  and 
with  the  names  of  Jesus,  Mary  and  Joseph  upon  his  lips,  thank- 
ing God  that  he  was  allowed  to  die  a  member  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus  and  a  missionary  of  Christ,  this  sweet,  heroic  soul  passed 
to  its  reward.  His  companions  buried  him  on  the  spot  where 
he  died,  and  raised  a  cross  above  the  grave  and  then  kept  on 
their  saddened  way  to  Michilimackinac. 

But  says  the  Jesuit  relation  of  1677: 

"  God  did  not  choose  to  suffer  so  precious  a  deposit  to  re- 
main unhonored  and  forgotten  amid  the  woods.  The  Kiskakon 
Indians  who  for  the  last  ten  years  have  publicly  professed 
Christianity,  in  which  they  were  first  instructed  by  Father 
Marquette,  when  stationed  at  La  Pointe  du  Saint  Esprit  at  the 
extremity  of   Lake  Superior,  were  hunting  last  winter  on  the- 


22 

banks  of  Lake  Illinois.  As  they  were  returning  early  in  spring, 
they  resolved  to  pass  by  the  tomb  of  their  good  Father,  whom 
they  tenderly  loved,  and  God  even  gave  them  the  thought  of 
taking  his  remains  and  bringing  them  to  our  church  at  the  mis- 
sion of  St.  Ignatius,  at  Michilimackinac,  where  they  reside." 

<«  They  accordingly  repaired  to  the  spot,  and,  after  some  de- 
liberation, they  resolved  to  proceed  with  their  father,  as  they 
usually  do  with  those  whom  they  respect.  They  opened  the 
grave,  divested  the  body,  and  though  the  flesh  and  intestines 
were  all  dried  up,  they  found  it  whole,  the  skin  being  in  no 
way  injured.  This  did  not  prevent  their  dissecting  it,  accord- 
ing to  custom.  They  washed  the  bones  and  dried  them  in  the 
sun.  Then  putting  them  neatly  in  a  box  of  birch  bark  they 
set  out  to  bear  them  to  the  house  of  St.  Ignatius.  The  convoy 
consisted  of  nearly  thirty  canoes,  in  excellent  order,  including 
even  a  good  number  of  Iroquois,  who  had  joined  our 
Algonquins,  to  honor  the  ceremony.  As  they  approached 
our  house.  Father  Nouvel,  who  is  Superior,  went  to  meet 
them  with  Father  Pierson,  accompanied  by  all  the  French 
and  Indians  of  the  place.  Having  caused  the  convoy  to 
stop,  he  made  the  ordinary  interrogations  to  verify  the 
fact  that  the  body  which  they  bore  was  really  Father 
Marquette's.  Then,  before  landing,  he  intoned  the  '  De 
Profundis '  in  sight  of  the  thirty  canoes  still  on  the  water, 
and  of  all  the  people  on  the  shores.  After  this  the  body  was 
carried  to  the  church,  observing  all  that  the  ritual  prescribes 
for  such  ceremonies.  It  remained  exposed  under  a  pall 
stretched  as  if  over  a  coffin  all  that  day,  which  was  Pentecost 
Monday,  the  8th  of  June,  (1677).  The  next  day,  when  all  the 
funeral  honors  had  been  paid  it,  it  was   deposited  in   a  little 


23 

vault  in  the  middle  of  the  church,  where  he  reposes  as  the 
guardian  angel  of  our  Ottawa  Missions.  The  Indians  often 
come  to  pray  on  his  tomb." 

So,  in  the  flower  of  his  manhood,  thirty-eight  years  old, 
died,  and  with  such  simple  and  yet  touching  ceremonies,  was 
finally  buried.  Father  Jacques  Marquette.  For  a  century  after- 
wards the  voyageurs  on  Lake  Michigan,  in  storm  and  peril, 
besought  what  they  believed  to  be  his  saintly  intercession. 

But  the  exact  site  of  his  grave  was  not  known  for  nearty 
two  hundred  years,  for  when  the  mission  was  temporarily 
abandoned  in  1706,  the  church  where  reposed  his  body  was 
burned. 

More  than  a  hundred  years  later  we  have  a  glimpse  of 
Father  Richard  looking  for  its  site  and  the  grave  of  a  great 
priest,  and,  half  a  century  later  still,  in  1877,  Father 
Jacker,  then  the  priest  in  charge  of  the  church  at  Point  St. 
Ignace,  to  the  general  satisfaction  of  the  historical  scholars  who 
investigated  the  matter,  identified  not  only  this  site,  but  found 
some  relics  of  the  sainted  missionary,  which  now  repose  in  the 
chapel  of  the  Marquette  College,  at  Milwaukee;  while  the 
grave  at  St.  Ignace  is  marked  by  a  plain  but  tasteful  monu- 
ment, to  tell  to  all  admirers  of  devotion  and  courage,  and  es- 
pecially to  all  who  are  true  sons  and  daughters  of  the  church, 
who  may  journey  thither,  that  beneath,  for  two  centuries,  lay 
all  that  was  mortal  of  that  most  intrepid  soldier  of  the  cross, 
Jacques  Marquette. 


In  the  year  1792,  perhaps  led  by  the  threatening  condition 
of  political  and  ecclesiastical  affairs  in  France,  the  Superior 
General  of  the  Sulpician  Order,  sent  from  that  country  to  Bal- 


24 

timore  in  the  United  States  a  number  of  young  ecclesiastics  to 
report  to  the  venerable  Bishop  Carroll  and  to  receive  his 
orders  for  the  work  of  the  Church  in  the  United  States. 

The  original  intention  seemed  to  be  that  these  young  men 
should  found  such  a  seminary  as  the  Sulpicians  the  world  over 
are  noted  for — for  the  theological  training  of  priests.  But  the 
need  was  much  more  urgent,  Bishop  Carroll  thought,  for  mis- 
sionary priests,  and  most  of  these  young  men  accepted  with 
eagerness  at  the  hands  of  the  bishop  the  offer  of  such  work. 
Among  them  was  Gabriel  Richard,  a  young  man  then  of 
twenty-eight  years,  born  in  Santes  in  France  in  1 764.  Like 
Father  Marquette  he  came  from  a  highly  connected  family, 
and  in  his  case,  too,  his  mother  was  from  a  family  illustrious  in 
the  records  of  the  church.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  had 
entered  the  Sulpician  order. 

By  Bishop  Carroll  this  young  missionary  was  assigned  a 
territorial  jurisdiction  of  great  extent.  He  was  given  as  Vicar- 
General  the  pastoral  charge  of  all  the  settlements  m  Illinois, 
and  the  missions  especially  that  had  been  established  by  the 
French  in  that  country  during  the  century  succeeding  Father 
Marquette's  first  visit  to  it. 

A  few  years  ago,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  looking  through  the 
registers  of  the  old  parish  churches  at  Fort  Chartres  and  Kas- 
kaskia  on  the  Mississippi  river,  and  found  that  many  of  the  en- 
tries in  the  latter  years  of  the  century  were  made  by  Gabriel 
Richard. 

When  a  few  days  ago,  I  looked  through  the  registers  here, 
I  found  again  the  same  familiar  hand  in  at  least  a  hundred  en- 
tries, reviving  in- my  mind  the  interest  I  had  long  felt  in  this 
pioneer  priest.      For    I    recognized   at  once  the  importance 


25 

which  here  as  there  his  duties  had  assumed  in  the  history  of 
the  church  in  America.  There  as  here  h*e  had  been  sent  at 
once  to  continue  the  work  of  the  line  of  French  missions  of 
the  older  time,  in  the  many  settlements  and  colonies  of  French 
and  Canadians  and  half  breeds  and  their  descendants,  who 
since  the  English  occupation  had  fallen  into  sad  need  of  regular 
pastoral  care,  and  to  whom  that  pastoral  care  to  be  effective  for 
good,  must  be  by  one  of  their  own  race  and  language,  and  also 
as  at  least  a  no  less  important  office,  to  begin  in  this  western 
country  the  new  development  and  to  encourage  the  new 
growth  of  the  Catholic  Church  from  roots  to  strike  more 
deeply  than  the  old  French  missions  could,  into  the  newly  born 
American  life  and  national  character. 

In  1798,  after  a  labor  which  became  more  and  more  fruitful 
as  the  years  went  on.  Father  Richard  was  withdrawn  from 
Illinois,  and  sent  to  what  seemed  the  still  more  important  and 
promising  field  of  Detroit,  where  the  same  condition  of  affairs 
as  at  Kaskaskia,  but  on  a  larger  scale,  called  for  the  same 
kind  of  an  ecclesiastical  administrator. 

From  1794,  when  he  was  but  thirty-four  years  old,  until 
1832,  when  he  died  a  true  martyr's  death  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
eight.  Father  Richard's  home  and  main  work  were  at  Detroit, 
where  he  nobly  performed  the  singularly  important  functions 
he  was  called  upon  in  the  Providence  of  God  to  fulfill. 

Not  forsaking  the  French  colonists,  the  descendants  of  those 
who  accompanied  Cadillac  to  Detroit  in  1 701  and  of  those 
who  subsequently  came  from  Canada,  and  who  still  formed  by 
far  the  greater  number  of  his  parishoners  at  the  old  St.  Anne's 
church,  of  which  his  main  home  work  was  the  pastoral  charge, 
nor   forgetting  either  the  Indian  Christians,  either  around  De- 


26 

troit  or  in  the  outlying  missions  far  or  near,  he  nevertheless 
thoroughly  recognized,  that  after  all  in  all  this  country 
the  controlling  tendency  of  the  time  was  towards  the 
ascendency  and  increasing  influence  and  importance  of  the 
great  English  speaking  race  that  had  come  under  God  to 
possess  the  land;  and  wasting  no  time  in  vain  regrets  over  the 
more  congenial  or  romantic  past,  he  set  his  face  towards  the 
rising  sun,  prophesying  of  and  preparing  the  ground  for  the 
glorious  destiny  he  saw  for  the  American  church  of  the  future. 

But  like  St.  Paul,  he  was  ready  to  be  all  things  to  all  men, 
if  haply  he  might  save  some,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  very 
different  work,  to  which  I  shall  hereafter  more  particularly  re- 
fer, he  found  time  to  be  the  devoted  missionary  and  pastor  of 
the  almost  abandoned  Indians  and  half-breeds  and  French 
voyageurs  and  traders,  who  then  lived  at  Michilimackinac. 

In  1706,  as  I  have  said,  the  mission  at  Michilimackinac 
was  temporarily  abandoned.  With  sad  hearts  and  reluctant 
hands  the  Jesuit  Fathers,  that  their  chapel  might  not 
be  desecrated,  had  themselves  burned  it  and  their  house, 
given  up  their  loved  labors  at  Michilimackinac  and  returned 
to  Quebec.  This  was  because  the  French  commandant  at 
Michilimackinac,  Cadillac,  had  removed  to  and  fortified  the 
present  site  of  Detroit  and  most  of  the  Indians  who  had  settled 
here,  led  by  the  material  inducements  held  out  by  Cadillac, 
had  followed  him  there.  Some  remained,  however,  and  more 
returned,  and  the  mission  of  Michilimackinac  was  soon  re- 
established, this  time,  however  on  the  other  side  of  the  straits, 
now  known  as  Old  Mackinaw.  Hither  had  come  the  saintly 
Jesuit  missionaries  Marest,  Lamorinie,  De  Jaunay  and  Le 
Franc,   laboring  zealously  and  efficiently  among  the  Indians. 


27 

We  catch  glimpses  of  this  mission  in  the  pages  of  Charle- 
voix's history,  but  these  parish  registers  here  are  the  best  evi- 
dence  of  the  labors  and  success  of  these  devoted  men. 

But  in  1762  Choiseul  drove  the  French  Jesuits  from  their 
colleges,  and  surrendered  the  possessions  of  France  in  America 
to  England,  and  without  the  magnificent  power  and  energy  of 
the  Society  of  Jesus  behind  it,  the  mission  at  Michilimackinac 
languished,  and  although  not  abandoned,  the  faithful  in  its 
flock  were  obliged  to  depend  on  visits,  more  or  less  frequent, 
from  various  missionary  priests. 

Between  1 762,  when  Dujaunay  left  Arbe  Croche  (now^  Har- 
bor Springs)  and  Michilimackinac,  and  1799?  when  Richard 
visited  the  mission,  Gibault,  Payet,  Ledru,  Levadoux,  all 
names  illustrious  among  the  post-Jesuit  missionaries  to  the  In- 
dians, had,  as  these  registers  attest,  been  here  at  intervals,  and 
when  they  came,  there  thronged  here  to  meet  them  the 
Christian  men  and  women,  French  and  Indian,  of  the  settle- 
ment, often  to  be  married  or  to  have  their  children  baptized, 
more  often  for  the  supplemental  ceremonies,  and  the  blessing 
of  the  Church,  on  lay  baptisms  already  administered  or  mar- 
riages already  contracted  before  some  civil  magistrate. 

These  parish  registers  here  contain  some  very  curious 
records  during  these  years,  made  by  lay  officials,  of  baptisms 
and  marriages  and  sepultures. 

In  the  matter  of  baptisms,  especially,  the  people,  well  in- 
structed in  the  efficacy  of  lay  baptism,  in  the  absence  of  a 
priest  frequently  applied  to  those  best  able  to  keep   a  record. 

Thus,  there  is  this  one  entry  (in  French,  which  I  have  trans- 
lated) : 

"The  thirtieth   of  August,    1781,  wsls  baptized  Domitille, 


28 

legitimate  daughter  of   Mr.   Charles  Gazelle    and  Madeleine 
Pascal,  his  legitimate  wife,  born  the  same  day  at  noon. 

"John  Coates, 

'^  Notary  Public:' 

Immediately  below  this  entry  is  another  still  more  remark- 
able. It  is  in  the  same  handwriting  evidently,  that  of  John 
Coates,  the  notary  public.     This  entry  is  in  English: 

"  I  certify  you   that,  according  to   the   due  and  prescribed 

order  of  the  Church,  at  noon,  on  this  day,  and  at  the  above 

place,  before  divers  witnesses,  I  baptized  this  child,  Charlotte 

Cleaves. 

"  (Signed)  P.  W.  Sinclair, 

"  Lt.  Governor  and  justice  of  the  Peace, 

"  Witnesses:     William  Grant,  John  McNamara,  D.  McRa}^, 

George  Meldrum. 

"John  Coates, 

"  Notary  Public:'' 

This  last  entry,  without  date  as  it  is,  or  the  names  of  the 
parents,  is  hardly  a  sufficient  baptismal  register  to  give  us 
much  information  for  these  later  days,  but  it  is  evidentty  the 
record  of  a  certificate,  insisted  upon  by  the  parents  and  given 
to  them  by  Major  Sinclair,  then  commander  of  the  post  for 
the  English  Government. 

In  the  memoirs  of  Augustus  Grignon,  published  in  the  Wis- 
consin Historical  Collections,  is  a  passage  relating  how  his 
mother,  who  was  a  daughter  of  Charles  Langlade,  who  was 
born  in  Mackinac  in  1729,  came  with  her  children  all  the  way 
in  a  birch  canoe,  from  Green  Bay  to  Mackinac  to  have  them 
baptized  by  Father  Payet,  who  was   making  a  visit  here  in 


29 

1787.  These  registers  confirm  this.  Six  children  of  Pierre 
Grignon,  from  four  months  to  ten  years  old,  were  at  that  time 
baptized. 

On  one  of  these  missionary  visits,  came  to  Michilimackinac,  in 
1799,  the  subject  of  this  sketch.  Father  Richard.  He  found 
here,  we  are  told,  about  700  Christians,  and  spent,  as  this 
register  shows,  several  weeks  at  least  in  ministering  to  their 
spiritual  necessities.  From  here  he  went  to  Georgian  Bay 
and  to  the  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  and  then,  after  an  absence  of  four 
months,  returned  to  Detroit.  The  succeeding  twenty  years  of 
Father  Richard's  life  were  marked  by  an  exceeding^  great 
activity;  made  Vicar-General  of  Detroit,  and  given  a  free 
hand,  he  enlarged  and  improved  all  the  parochial  and  mission 
schools;  he  opened  an  academy  of  a  very  high  class  for  the 
higher  education  of  women.  He  also  instituted  and  carried 
on  a  seminary  for  young  men,  and  endeavored  to  obtain  from 
among  its  pupils  fit  candidates  for  the  priesthood,  of  which 
he  had  pressing  need.     . 

In  1805,  in  a  fire  which  almost  entirely  de^stroyed  the  city. 
Father  Richard's  church  and  presbytery  and  schools  were 
burned.  But  far  from  discouraging  him,  the  calamity  seems 
but  to  have  reanimated  his  zeal,  and  he  soon  had  rebuilt  the 
church  and  re-established  his  school— supplying  the  latter  with 
chemical  and  astronomical  apparatus. 

In  1807,  believing  that  the  time  had  fully  come,  he  estab- 
lished a  series  of  English  sermons  given  every  Sunday  in  the 
Council  House  of  the  then  newly  established  Territory  of 
Michigan. 

In  1808  and  '9  he  visted  his  bishop  at  Baltimore,  and  went 
to   other   eastern   cities,  bringing  back   with   him  a  printer,  a 


30 

printing-press  and  a  font  of  old  type.  This  has  been  said  to 
have  been  the  first  printing-press  west  of  the  Alleghanies. 
It  certainly  was  the  first  in  Michigan.  On  this  press  were 
printed  some  devotional  books,  an  edition  of  the  epistles  and 
gospels  in  French  and  English,  and  various  educational 
books.  A  copy  of  one  of  these  small  books  for  children 
called  Journal  des  Enfants,  printed  in  French  and  English  on 
alternate  pages,  belongs  to  me,  and  is  here  and  is  subject  to 
your  inspection.  I  cannot  say  much  for  the  typographical 
execution,  but  the  matter  seems  to  me  useful  and  good. 
Father  Vitali,  the  priest  of  this  mission,  owns  and  uses  on 
all  public  services  one  of  the  edition  of  the  epistles  and  gospel 
referred  to,  and  this  also  is  here. 

In  1 812  Father  Richard  imported  from  Europe,  for  his 
church,  an  organ,  the  first  ever  brought  to  the  North-west. 

In  181 2  came  the  English  war.  Aided  by  the  Indians  the 
English  took  Detroit,  and  one  of  their  first  acts  was  to  im- 
prison Father  Richard,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  an  instiga- 
tor and  exciter  of  anti-English  feeling.  Sent  to  a  guard-house 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river  he  used  his  great  influence  and 
experience  with  the  Indians  to  save  the  other  prisoners  from  tor- 
ture. On  his  return  to  Detroit  at  the  close  of  the  war,  he  found 
his  flock  threatened  with  famine.  Sending  away,  he  procured 
and  distributed  provision  and  seed;  "  continuing,"  as  has  been 
said  by  another,  "  as  long  as  the  scarcity  lasted,  to  be  the  liv- 
ing Providence  of  the  destitute." 

In  the  meantime  he  had  not  forgotten  the  poor  flock  at 
Michilimackinac.  He  had  sent  them  already  once  or  twice 
his  faithful  assistant,  Father  Dilhet,  and  at  last  in  1821,  being 
fifty-seven  years  old,  he  again  himself  braved  the  hardships  of 
the  wilderness  to  come  and  visit  them. 


31 

He  went  to  Arbre  Croche  also  at  this  time  and  was  con- 
ducted by  the  Indians  at  his  request  to  the  spot  where  Father 
Marquette  was  first  buried.  To  honor  the  founder  of 
Mackinac  and  the  discoverer  of  the  Mississippi  he  raised  a 
wooden  cross  over  the  spot  cutting  with  his  knife  upon  it, 

Fr  J  Marquette 
Died  here  ist  May  1675. 

On  the  following  Sunday  he  celebrated  mass  on  the  spot 
and  pronounced  an  elogium  on  the  great  missionary. 

Probably  he  thought  Marquette's  remains  still  lay  there,  but 
perhaps  not,  for  ap^rt  from  the  view  gained  of  Richard's  visit 
at  this  time  from  these  registers,  we  catch  a  very  interesting 
glimpse  of  him,  in  a  letter  written  by  Father  Jacker  in  1886. 

He  says  that  a  very  honest  and  intelligent  Indian,  then  living, 
one  Joseph  Misatago,  told  him  that  in  1821  he  met  Father 
Richard  lost  in  the  woods  back  of  the  present  site  of  St.  Ignace 
where  he  had  gone  in  search  of  any  traces  that  might  exist  of 
a  church  where  it  was  said  a  great  priest  was  buried. 
Whether,  however.  Father  Richard  had  associated  this  tra- 
dition wdth  the  final  resting  place  of  Marquette  is  doubtful. 

In  1823  the  most  remarkable  episode  in  the  life  of  this  zeal- 
ous, energetic  priest  occurred.  We  have  all  of  us  known 
many  Catholic  priests  who  were  school-teachers,  many  that 
were  publishers  and  musicians,  and  all  of  thern  are  in  some 
sense  missionaries,  but  except  Father  Richard  I  think  no  one 
is  known  who  was  a  congressman.  But  in  1823  Gabriel 
Richard  by  a  large  majority  was  elected  as  a  delegate  from 
the  territory  of  Michigan  to  the  National  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives.    His  appearance  in  Washington  created  some  sen- 


32 

sation,  but  he  was  soon  a  favorite  among  his  colleagues  and  in 
the  society  of  the  capital. 

His  appearance  at  this  time  has  been  described  by  one  of  his 
contemporaries :  1  have  not  by  me  the  words  in  which  it  was 
done  but  I  know  that  he  is  said  to  have  been  tall  and  spare, 
dignified  and  ascetic  looking,  with  an  intellectual  head  and 
piercing  black  eyes.  He  was  of  scrupulous  neatness  in 
attire  and  person. 

While  in  Congress  he  made  at  least  one  important  speech. 

It  was  concerning  a  proposed  appropriation  for  a  military  road 
from  Detroit  to  Fort  Dearborn  and  the  mouth  of  the  Chicago 
river,  and  true  to  his  character  as  a  builder  for  the  future,  the 
sagacious  pioneer  in  the  new  order  of  things,  as  well  as  the 
faithful  inheritor  of  the  old,  he  prophesied  the  future  greatness 
and  importance  of  the  settlement  upon  this  location. 

But  I  think  we  may  be  sure  that  of  all  the  official  documents 
which  fell  under  his  eye,  he  found  none  more  interesting  than 
the  following  petition  sent  to  Congress : 

"  We,  the  undersigned  chiefs,  heads  of  families  and  others  of 
the  tribe  of  Ottawas,  residing  at  Arbre  Croche,  on  the  east 
bank  of  Lake  Michigan,  take  this  means  to  communicate  to 
our  father,  the  President  of  the  United  States,  our  requests 
and  wants.  We  thank  our  father  and  Congress  for  all  the 
efforts  they  have  made  to  draw  us  to  civiHzation  and  the 
knowledge  of  Jegus,  redeemer  of  the  red  man  and  the  white. 
Trusting  in  your  paternal  goodness  we  claim  liberty  of  con- 
science, and  beg  you  to  grant  us  a  master  or  minister  of  the 
gospel,  belonging  to  the  same  society  as  the  members  of  the 
Catholic  Society  of  St.  Ignatius,  formerly  established  at  Mich- 
ilimackinac  and  Arbre    Croche    by ,  Father    Marquette,    and 


33 

other  missionaries  of  the  order  of  Jesuits.  They  resided 
long  years  among  us.  They  cultivated  a  field  on  our  terri- 
tory to  teach  us  the  principles  of  agriculture  and  Christianity. 

Since  that  time  we  have  always  desired  similar  ministers. 
If  you  grant  us  them,  we  will  invite  them  to  live  on  the  same 
ground  formerly  occupied  by  Father  Du  Jaunay,  on  the  banks 
of  Lake  Michigan,  near  our  village  of  Arbre  Croche. 

If  you  grant  this  humble  request  of  your  faithful  children, 
they  will  be  eternally  grateful,  and  will  pray  the  Great  Spirit 
to  pour  forth  his  blessings  on  the  whites. 

In  faith  hereof,  we  have  set  our  names  this  day,  August  12, 
1823. 

Hawk,  Crane,  Bear. 

Fish,  Eagle,  Stag, 

Caterpillar,  Flying  Fish." 

After  Father  Richard's  election  to  Congress  he  came  for  the 
third  time  to  Michilimackinac.  In  August,  1823,  as  the 
register  here  shows,  he  was  among  the  flock  baptizing  and 
marrying  and  doubtless  exhorting,  encouraging  and  confirming, 
and  it  is  to  be  presumed,  explaining  to  the  inhabitants  of  this 
out-of-the-way  frontier  post,  their  duties  as  citizens  of  the 
comparatively  new-born  republic,  as  well  as  of  the  great  king- 
dom not  of  this  world. 

With  his  return  to  Detroit  from  this  visit  his  direct  personal 
connection  with  the  mission  ends,  but  he  sent  thereafter  his 
assistants.  Father  Badin  and  Father  De  Jean,  for  visitations  to 
his  spiritual  children  here,  and  since  1830  there  has  never 
failed  for  an}^  considerable  time  to  be  a  resident  missionary 
priest  at  Michilimackinac,  represented  now  both  by  the  mission 
of  St.  Anne  de  Michilimackinac  on  the  island  itself  and  by  the 


34 

parish  church  at  Point  St.  Ignace.  But  it  is  the  church  here, 
removed  from  the  mainland  on  the  Southern  Peninsula,  that  is 
technically  and  accurately  in  the  true  succession  to  the  first 
established  mission  at  Michilimackinac. 

Father  Richard  was  like  Father  Marquette,  destined  for  the 
sublime  honors  of  martyrdom,  not  technically  so  called,  but  it 
would  seem  as  really  and  truly  as  though  it  were  the  tomahawk 
or  the  fagot  instead  of  disease  that  wrought  their  death. 

In  1832  the  Asiatic  cholera  devastated  Detroit.  Night  and 
day  Father  Richard  devoted  himself  to  the  sick  and  the  dying 
of  his  flock.  Although  almost  seventy  years  old  he  gave  him- 
self no  rest,  and  finally  worn  out,  he  succumbed  to  the  dread 
disease.  By  his  d3ang  bed  were  the  saintly  Fenwick,  his  bishop, 
and  his  younger  friend  and  disciple,  Frederic  Baraga,  who 
became  afterward  the  revered  Bishop  of  Marquette. 

He  is  buried  beneath  the  altar  of  St.  Anne's  in  Detroit.  On 
the  noble  facade  of  the  city  hall  in  that  city,  with  that  of  Father 
Marquette  and  of  LaSalle  and  of  Cadillac,  his  statue  preserves 
for  Detroit  his  memory. 

It  seems  to  me  that  it  w^ould  be  a  graceful  and  appropriate 
thing  for  some  lover  of  Mackinac,  some  day  to  place  in  the 
mission  church  of  St.  Anne  de  Michilimackinac,  a  plain  mem- 
orial window,  commemorating  these  two  heroic  figures  con- 
nected with  its  history  — Jacques  Marquette  and  Gabriel 
Richard. 


THE  PARISH  REGISTER  AT  MICHILIMACKINAC. 


IT  is  a  fair  country  which  lies  350  miles  to  the  north  at  the 
other  end  of  Lake  Michigan.  The  "  fairy  isle  "  of  Mack- 
inac and  the  country  round  about,  all  once  known  as  Michili- 
mackinac,  with  the  winding  shores  and  the  heavy  woods  of  the 
Northern  and  Southern  peninsulas  of  Michigan,  the  silver  straits 
between,  and  the  picturesque  islands  all  about — form  a  pano- 
rama to  the  charms  of  which  no  person  is  ever  insensible. 

And  to  one  at  all  interested  in  the  early  history  of  x\merica, 
the  pleasure  which  he  may  derive  from  the  natural  advantages 
of  Mackinac  is  intensified  and  heightened  by  the  associations 
which  cluster  about  the  country.  Human  interest  and  human 
sympathy  always  glorify  natural  scenery,  and  Mackinac  is  cer- 
tainly not  wanting  in  these  elements. 

For  some  years  past  Mackinac  Island  has  been  the  summer 
home  of  my  family,  and  I  have  escaped  from  the  city's  dust 
and  cinders  as  often  and  as  long  as  I  could  to  enjoy  it  with 
them.  One  of  the  pleasantest  things  connected  with  my  vaca- 
tions has  been  the  enjoyment  of  the  associations  which  cluster 
about  the  little  church  of  the  parish  of  St.  Anne  de  Michili- 
mackinac,  at  which,  of  course,  w^e  are  worshipers.  I  can 
never  help  remembering,  as  I  kneel  Before  its  altars,  that  the 
mission  was  founded  by  that  heroic  and  saintly  priest,  Mar- 


36 

quette;  that  it  was  the  scene  thereafter  of  the  labors  of  his 
worthy  successors  among  "  the  priests  of  the  society  "  whom 
two  continents  have  delighted  to  honor  as  the  most  devoted  and 
glorious  missionaries;  that  it  was  continued  through  dark  and 
trying  times  to  both  church  and  state  when  French,  and 
English,  and  Americans  were,  by  turn,  striving  for  the  mastery 
of  the  country,  and  that  all  that  time  it  has  preserved  an  his- 
toric, ecclesiastical  continuity.  Within  its  sacristy  is  a  set  of 
heavy  black  vestments,  elaborately  w^orked  with  embroid- 
ery of  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  In  them  mass  was  perhaps 
said  at  the  mission  when  the  eighteenth  century  had  hardly 
begun.  A  ciborium,  too,  is  used,  which  was  made  and 
sent  from  France  during  the  reign  of  the  grand  monarch, 
and  numerous  small  articles  of  church  furniture  and  some  rude 
pictures  evidently  of  the  same  date  can  be  seen  there  by  the 
curious  for  the  asking. 

The  first  chapter  in  the  history  of  Mackinac  was  but  a 
short  one,  but  it  was  the  most  interesting  of  all.  It  began 
when  Jacques  Marquette,  in  1671,  following  his  Huron  con- 
verts, who  were  flying  from  the  Western  and  the  Southern 
shores  of  Lake  Superior  before  the  fierce  revengeful  wrath  of 
the  Sioux,  settled  with  them  at  Point  St.  Ignace,  as  he  named  it, 
and  built  a  chapel  under  which  he  was  buried  six  years  after. 
That  chapter  closed,  to  the  great  grief  of  Marquette's  Jesuit 
successors  who  had  been  in  charge  of  the  mission  and  who 
had  labored  among  the  savage  tribes  with  the  most  encourag- 
ing and  satisfactory  results,  shortly  after  Cadillac,  the  com- 
mandant in  charge,  had  removed  the  garrison  to  Detroit  in 
1 701.  He  held  out  all  possible  inducements  both  to  the 
Christianized  and  non-christianized  Indians  about  Mackinac  to 


37 

follow  him.  But  he  had  quarreled  with  the  Jesuits  and  would 
have  none  but  Recollet  friars  in  his  new  settlement.  So  in 
1706,  with  sad  hearts,  to  prevent  its  desecration,  the  Jesuit 
fathers  burnt  their  chapel  at  Pt.  St.  Ignace,  and  retired  un- 
doubtedly with  all  the  archives  of  the  mission  to  Quebec. 
What  has  become  of  the  registers  which  they  must  have 
kept,  I  do  not  know.  If  they  are  in  existence,  I  should  think 
they  would  have  been  before  this  discovered,  by  some  such 
scholar  and  investigator  as  Dr.  Shea,  who  has  done  so  much 
in  bringing  to  light  documents  of  this  time  and  character. 

The  next  chapter  in  the  history  of  Mackinac  begins  when 
the  Mission  was  re-established  in  17 12,  probably  by  Father 
Marest,  upon  the  other  side  of  the  straits,  near  the  site  of  what 
is  now  known  as  Old  Mackinac.  This  was  contemporaneous 
with  the  re-establishment  of  the  Fort  by  De  Louvigny,  sent 
for  that  purpose  by  the  Governor  General  of  Canada.  It  is 
stated,  1  know  not  upon  what  authority,  by  those  who  pretend 
to  know,  that  a  second  and  new  church  was  built  at  this  post 
in  1741-  I  think  that  this  supposition  is  made  principally  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  the  first  parish  register  which  has  come 
to  our  times  was  evidently  begun  at  that  date.  It  may  be, 
however,  that  there  exists  evidence  of  ihe  building  of  a  new 
church  in  1 74 1.  I  do  not  pretend  to  have  made  an}^  thorough 
investigation  of  the  matter.  Be  that  as  it  may,  there  was 
some  church  for  the  Mission  upon  the  south  shore  of  the  straits 
of  Mackinac  from  171 2  until  about  1785,  when  it  seems  to 
have  been  taken  down  and  its  material  used  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  mission  church  at  the  Island  of  Mackinac  itself, 
whither  the  Fort  had  been  by  the  English  removed  five  years 
before.     This  second  chapter  in  the  history  of  Mackinac,  as  I 


38 

would  divide  its  story,  lasted  until  the  American  Fur  Company 
had  practically  taken  entire  possession  of  the  trading  post,  and 
it  had  ceased  to  be  to  any  great  extent  the  headquarters  of  the 
independent  traders  and  of  the  old  coureurs  de  bois,  the  voy- 
ageurs  and  their  engages. 

It  was  of  all  this  period  that  I  had  hoped  to  find  the  ecclesi- 
astical record.  It  was  one  of  romantic  interest,  not  because,  as 
the  previous  chapter  was,  especially  connected  with  the  glorious 
missionary  zeal  and  efforts  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  but  because 
full  of  a  more  worldly  but  hardly  less  adventurous  spirit.  With- 
in this  period  occurred  the  great  French  and  Indian  wars,  when, 
as  Macauley  says,  *•  In  order  that  Frederick  the  Great  might 
rob  a  neighbor  whom  he  had  promised  to  defend,  black  men 
fought  on  the  coast  of  Coramandel  and  red  men  scalped  each 
other  by  the  great  lakes  of  North  America."  Then  came  the 
surrender  and  cession  of  Canada  to  the  English,  when  •'  bigots 
and  panders  and  lackeys  the  fortunes  of  France  had  un- 
done," and  after  that  began  the  revolt  of  the  American  colonies, 
the  final  possession  of  the  colonies  about  Mackinac  by  the  new 
government  and  the  subsequent  struggle  with  England  in  which 
it  was  again  the  coveted  prize  of  contending  forces.  But  the 
earliest  register  which  exists  was,  as  I  have  said,  begun  in 
1 741.  It  contains  a  short  abridgment  of  entries  from  a 
former  register,  which  is  declared  by  it  still  to  exist  in  the 
archives  of  the  mission,  but  the  abridgment  is  extremely  short, 
and  the  original  from  which  it  is  taken,  can  nowhere  be  found. 

The  first  contemporaneous  entry  is  the  baptism  of  one  Louis 
Joseph  Chaboyer  upon  October  4,  1741,  by  Jean  Baptiste  La- 
morinie,  a  missionary  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  its  last  is  of  a 
baptism  performed  by  Father  Gabriel  Richard,  in  August, 
1821. 


Z9 

It  is  a  mere  accident  that  the  register  ends  just  where  it  does. 
The  space  in  the  book  was  exhausted  and  a  new  one  begun  by 
Father  Richard  at  this  last  date  of  August,  1821.  The  time, 
however,  corresponds  closely  enough  with  the  close  of  the 
second  chapter  in  the  history  of  Mackinac,  which  I  have  pre- 
viously indicated. .  A  transcription  of  this  register,  I  have  with 
me.     It  is  of  course  in  French.  ,    . 

Before  we  turn  to  the  register  itself,  I  will  briefly  advert  to 
the  character  and  condition  of  the  settlement  at  the  time  this 
record  begins.  It  was  then  still  in  the  hands  of  the  French, 
from  which  it  passed  in  1760,  but  its  general  character  even 
after  the  cession,  was  not  changed — English  forces  however 
taking  the  places  of  the  French. 

The  settlement  was  of  about  sixty  families,  occupying  as 
many  houses,  clustered  about  the  fort  and  mission  house,  and 
all  surrounded  by  a  high  wooden  palisade.  The  houses,  of 
picturesque  shape  and  appearance,*  were  roughly  whitewashed 
and  the  village  was  not  unpleasing  to  the  eye.  It  was  in  the 
midst  of  boundless  and  unlimited  forests  stretching  in  every 
direction.  It  was  then  by  far  the  largest  settlement  in  the 
northern  lake  region,  and  the  headquarters  and  center  of  the 
trade  between  the  French  and  the  Indians  of  the  West. 

The  inhabitants  besides  the  few  militia  soldiers,  with  their 
officers  and  the  missionaries,  were  the  descendants  of  former 
garrisons  and  the  fur  traders  with  their  engages  and  voyageurs. 
From  Michilimackinac  these  latter  used  every  autumn  to  go 
out  with  goods  for  the  Indians  to  exchange  for  furs,  to  all  parts 
of  the  w^estern  country  where  Indians  were  known  to  congre- 
gate. They  went  in  batteaux  or  birch  bark  canoes,  each  boat  or 
canoe  with  a  crew  or  company  of   from  four  to  ten.     These 


40 

crews  were  under  contract  from  the  traders  and  received  each 
from  $50  to  $150  a  year  and  an  outfit  of  a  blanket,  two  suits 
of  coarse  clothes  and  some  small  articles  necessary  to  the 
rudest  toilet.  They  were  a  hard}^  adventurous  set  of  men, 
who  could  live  on  meagre  fare,  row  their  boats  all  day,  or 
carry  packs  of  100  pounds  on  their  backs  through  the  rough 
trackless  woods  for  weeks  together  and  then  spend  the  nights 
in  music  and  dancing.  In  the  winter  they  were  generally  at 
their  various  winter  trading  grounds;  "hyvernements,  "  these 
records  call  them,  and  in  the  spring  they  came  back  to  Mack- 
inac, very  likely  to  spend  in  intemperance  and  dissolute  idle- 
ness during  three  or  four  months  the  hardly  earned  wages  of 
the  rest  of  the  year. 

Through  the  result  of  their  ancestors'  intermarriages  with  the 
Indians  and  the  less  legal  relations  which  were  still  more  common, 
all  classes,  even  including  most  of  the  officers,  had  more  or  less 
Indian  blood.  Some  of  the  voyageurs  were  almost  entirely 
Indian,  others  less  so,  but  almost  the  entire  population  of  every 
class  in  Mackinac  in  1741,  may  safely  be  supposed  to  have 
been  in  some  degree  connected  by  birth  or  marriage  with  the 
savages. 

Their  morals,  as  these  registers  show,  were  none  of  the 
strictest;  and  "natural"  children  "by  savage  mothers,"  or, 
"  of  an  unknown  father  "  form  perhaps  the  largest  proportion 
of  those  whose  baptisms  are  in  this  register  recorded.  Con- 
cubinage was  a  recognized  institution,  the  obligations  incurred 
by  the  temporary  husband  by  contract  with  the  parents  of  the 
half  breed  or  Indian  girl  whom  he  undertook  to  make  his 
mistress  for  some  limited  time  were  enforced  sometimes  even 
by  the  local  jurisprudence,  and  at   all  times   by  the  force  of 


41 

public  opinion.  But  chastity  was  not  rated  high.  It  is  a  tra- 
dition that  at  about  the  time  this  register  ends,  a  local  magis- 
trate before  whom  a  French  voyageur  was  proven  to  have 
committed  a  felonious  assault  on  an  Indian  girl,  condemned  the 
fellow  to  buy  the  girl  a  new  frock,  as  he  had  torn  hers  in  the 
scuffle,  and  to  work  one  w^eek  in  his  (the  Justice's)  garden. 
It  was  more  disheartening,  undoubtedly,  and  difficult  for  the 
good  priests  to  labor  among  these  people,  nominal  Catholics, 
and  in  w^hom  indeed  in  many  cases,  intelligent  and  instructed 
faith  seems  to  have  been  strong,  notwithstanding  the  disso- 
luteness of  their  morals,  (for  which  in  their  better  moments 
they  undoubtedly  felt  remorseful)  than  it  was  even  to  preach 
to  the  uncorrupted  but  pagan  Indians. 

But  they  labored  hopefully  on,  as  this  register  shows,  doing 
all  they  could  and  dividing  their  time  and  labors  evidently 
between  the  little  French  and  half-breed  colony  of  Mackinac, 
w^hich  they  treated  as  a  mission  parish,  and  the  Indian  villages 
of  the  Ottawas  and  O  jib  ways  (half  Christian  and  half  pagan) 
near  by. 

This  register  beginning,  as  I  have  said,  in  1741,  and  ending 
in  1 82 1,  purports  to  be  a  record  of  all  ecclesiastical  matters 
between  those  years  in  the  parish  of  the  mission  at  Mackinac. 
But  it  is  certainly  very  far  from  complete.  It  is  not  continu- 
ous. For  many  years  together  at  various  times  there  was  no 
priest  residing  at  Mackinac,  and  although  during  these  inter- 
vals, there  are  many  curious  records  attested  by  laymen  as 
will  hereafter  be  seen,  yet  it  is  evident  from  the  comparative 
number  of  them,  that  it  was  only  the  more  careful  and 
thoughtful  who  took  pains  to  see  during  all  these  years  that 
anv  record  was  made  at  ail. 


42 

In  1741,  when  the  first  contemporaneous  entries  were  made. 
Father  Du  Jaunay  and  Father  de  Lamorinie,  both  Jesuits, 
were  evidently  together  at  the  post.  In  more  than  one  in- 
stance one  served  as  godfather  while  the  other  administered 
the  baptism.  In  1743  and  1744  their  place  was  taken  by 
Father  Coquarz,  another  of  the  later  Jesuit  missionaries. 
But  from  1744  until  1749,  a  period  nearly  contemporaneous 
with  that  part  of  the  old  French  and  Indian  wars,  known  as 
"  King  George's  war,"  there  was  evidently  no  priest  in  Mack- 
inac. From  1749  ^^  1752  Father  Du  Jaunay  was  again  in 
charge.  In  1752  he  was  either  relieved  or  visited  by  Father 
de  Lamorinie  and  Father  Lefranc,  and  Father  Lefranc  and 
Father  Du  Jaunay  seem  to  have  alternated  in  their  charge 
of  the  mission  from  1752  until  1761. 

I  suspect  that  they  relieved  each  other  by  alternating  be- 
tween the  settlement  upon  the  St.  Joseph  river  and  the  one  at 
Mackinac.  But  from  1761  until  1765,  during  which  time  the 
British  took  possession  of  Mackinac  and  the  massacre  and 
capture  of  the  fort  in  Pontiac's  conspiracy  took  place.  Father 
Du  Jaunay  was  at  the  post.  I  shall  allude  hereafter  to  the  part 
which  he  played  during  that  time.  From  1765  until  1768 
there  was  evidently  no  priest  at  the  mission.  In  1768  Father 
Gibault,  styling  himself  first  "Grand  Vicar  of  Louisiana"  and 
again  "  Vicar  General  of  Illinois,"  and  who,  as  we  know  from 
other  sources,  held  that  title  from  the  Bishop  of  Quebec, 
visited  the  post  upon  his  way  south  to  arrange,  if  possible,  the 
question  of  jurisdiction  concerning  the  lower  Illinois  mission 
with  the  Capuchins  of  New  Orleans.  In  1775  Father  Gibault 
made  another  brief  visit.  From  that  time  on  until  1786,  the 
period  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  there  was  again  no  clergy- 


43 

man  who  even  made  a  visit  to  the  settlement.  In  1776  and 
1777,  Father  Payet  was  there  for  two  months  in  the  summer 
of  each  year.  After  that  for  seven  years,  no  priest  visits  the 
church.  Then  for  two  or  three  months  a  Dominican  named 
Ledru,  styling  himself  "  an  apostolic  missionary  priest, "  per- 
forms marriages  and  celebrates  baptisms  for  a  period  of  two  or 
thrfee  months.  In  1796  Father  Levadoux  makes  a  visit  to  the 
mission,  styling  himself  "  Vicar  general  of  Monsieur  the  Bishop 
of  Baltimore."  Up  to  this  time,  through  the  great  delay  pur- 
posely made  by  the  British  in  carrying  out  the  treaties  of  1783 
and  1794,  the  post  at  Michilimackinac  had  not  been  taken 
possession  of  by  the  Americans.  In  October,  1796,  two  com- 
panies of  the  United  States  army  [oi  the  ist  infantry)  arrived 
and  took  possession,  and  in  1799,  the  man  who,  although  a 
Frenchman  by  birth,  may  from  his  career,  be  called  the  first 
distinctively  American  priest,  Father  Gabriel  Richard,  in  the 
course  of  an  extended  tour  of  the  north-western  missions,  ar- 
rived at  Mackinac,  where  he  made  a  stay  of  about  three 
months.  In  1804  he  sent  from  Detroit  his  assistant.  Father 
Dilhet.  In  182 1  and  as  the  subsequent  register  shows,  again 
in  1823,  (the  last  time  just  after  his  election  as  delegate  to  the 
American  Congress  from  the  Territory  of  Michigan)  Father 
Richard  was  at  Mackinac. 

When,  upon  a  careful  examination  of  the  register,  it  became 
apparent  to  me  how  scanty  it  really  w^as,  and  for  how  many 
years  together,  during  the  most  interesting  periods,  there  were 
no  entries  at  all  to  be  £ound,  and  when  I  realized  further  that 
it  was  principally,  after  all,  just  what  it  purported  to  be,  a  mere 
record  of  baptisms,  marriages  and  deaths,  lacking  many  of  the 
other  and  more  interesting  features,  which,  as  I  remember  it, 


44 

are  characteristic  of  the  register  at  Kaskaskia.  I  was  some- 
what disappointed,  and  I  feared  it  would  be  difficult  to  make 
the  matter  which  appeared  in  it  as  interesting  even  to  you  as  it 
was  to  me;  but  I  have  studied  it,  after  all,  with  considerable  care, 
and  there  are  some  observations  to  be  made  upon  the  register 
or  record  itself  which  may  throw  some  light  upon  questions 
of  interest,  or  at  least  suggest  such  questions  for  more  careful 
investigation. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  conditions  of  licentiousness  and  disso- 
luteness, and  the  apparently  unlimited  indulgence  in  concu- 
binage which  the  record  of  baptisms  of  illegitimate  children 
shows;  but  it  did  not  require  this  record,  of  course,  to  inform 
any  of  us  of  the  loose  morality  of  the  coureurs  de  bois  and  the 
bushlopers  of  this  frontier  trading-post,  and  the  insufficient 
influence  of  their  nominal  religious  convictions  upon  them. 
I  am  afraid  they  would  have  been  pointed  out  by  the  Puritans 
of  New  England  as  frightful  examples  of  the  effect  of  Catholic 
teaching.  But  of  course  nothing  could  have  been  more  unjust. 
Their  vices  sprang  from  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  their 
location  and  their  life,  and  from  the  natural  temperament  of 
one  who  has  a  union  of  French  and  Indian  blood.  Their 
character  and  morals  undoubtedly  made  the  work  of  the  mis- 
sionary^ hard,  but  it  did  not  detract  from  its  devotion. 

By  comparing  the  dates  of  entries  of  marriages  and  baptisms 
it  is  easy  to  see  how  often  when  the  father  or  mother  of  ille- 
gitimate children  brought  them  for  baptism,  or  when  the  good 
priest  had  successfully  sought  them  out  for  that  purpose,  he 
also  succeeded  in  inducing  the  father  and  mother  to  take  upon 
themselves  the  bonds  of  a  sacramental  marriage.  Some  in- 
stances of  this  occurred,   I   believe,   during  each  year,   when 


45 

priests  were  present  at  all,  at  the  mission.  I  remember  one 
fact  which  interested  me  because  I  know  something  of  a  start- 
ling incident  in  the  life  of  fhe  father  of  the  children  and  the 
subsequent  bridegroom.  One  Louis  Hamline,  who  was  a 
soldier,  who  followed  Charles  De  Langlade  through  many 
campaigns  (of  Charles  De  Langlade  I  mean  to  say  something 
hereafter],  was  in  1777  married  by  Father  Payet  to  Josette  La 
Sable,  a  savage  woman,  some  children  of  theirs  having  just 
before  that  time  been  baptized.  Some  years  before  without 
being  married  he  had  brought  other  and  older  children  by  the 
same  woman  to  be  baptized.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
exhortations  of  the  good  father  in  1777  were  supplemented  by 
an  awakening  of  conscience  for  which  there  was  certainly 
opportunity — as  this  same  Louis  Hamline  had  in  that  year 
while  setting  trout  lines  through  the  ice,  been  carried  off  by  a 
sudden  wind,  which  detached  the  ice  in  a  great  floe  from  the 
land,  as  frequently  happens  in  the  straits  of  Mackinac.  For 
nine  days  with  great  fortitude  and  endurance  he  had  lived 
without  food  until  a  favorable  wind  arising,  the  ice  was  again 
blown  to  the  shore. 

Of  course  in  speaking  of  these  records  as  throwing  light 
upon  the  dissolute  character  of  the  settlement,  I  am  not  refer- 
ring to  any  of  the  acts  which  were  happily  numerous,  where  in 
the  absence  of  the  priest,  marriages  perfectly  valid  both  under 
the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  law  were  contracted  in  the  absence 
of  the  priest,  the  religious  ceremony  alone  being  supplied  when 
the  priest  came  to  the  settlement.  In  these  unions  there  was  of 
course  nothing  immoral  or  censurable,  and  I  think  it  is  hardly 
realized  to-day  how  carefully  the  Catholic  church  teaches  that 
the  sacrament   of  marriage  absolutely  requires  neither  priest 


46 

nor  witness.  The  essence  of  the  sacrament  is  in  the  consent 
of  parties.  So  teach  all  the  theologians.  But  how  perfectly 
this  w^as  understood  by  the  instructed  catholics  «at  Mackinac, 
there  are  some  curious  entries  to  attest.  One  particular  case 
from  which  I  will  hereafter  quote,  that  of  Charles  Gauthier  de 
Vierville,  could  have  hardly  been  better  expressed  had  it  been 
drawn  by  a  doctor  of  the  Sorbonne.  There  is  another  matter 
to  which  I  think  the  register  bears  interesting  testimony.  It 
has  been  a  too  common  opinion,  springing  from  prejudice 
against  the  Church,  that  the  Catholic  missionaries'  apparent 
success  among  the  Indians  arose  from  their  taking  them  into 
the  church  without  sufficiently  instructing  them.  I  think  Park- 
man  even  allows  himself  somewhere  to  speak  of  the  Catholic 
missionary  contenting  himself  with  sprinkling  a  few  drops,  of 
water  upon  the  forehead  of  his  savage  proselyte,  while  the  Pro- 
testants tried  to  win  him  from  his  barbarism  and  prepare  his  sav- 
age heart  for  the  truths  of  Christianity.  There  is  absolutely  no 
truth  in  this,  and  no  evidence  has  ever  been  cited  for  it.  And  this 
register,  like  all  the  missionary  registers,  is  affirmative  proof 
of  its  falsity.  There  is  hardly  a  case  in  which  an  Indian  of 
adult  age,  or  even  above  the  age  of  reason  is  certified  to  have 
been  baptized  in  this  record,  where  special  allusion  is  not  made 
to  his  or  her  previous  instruction.  "  Sufficiently  instructed  and 
ardently  desiring  baptism  "  is  the  certificate  of  these  men  who' 
were  not  either  in  formal  or  in  informal  utterances,  liars.  Even 
in  times  of  emergency  and  danger  there  is  shown  a  great 
anxiety  upon  the  part  of  the  priests  that  improper  and  merely 
formal  baptisms  should  not  be  made. 

Thus  the  register  shows  that  in  October,  1757,  there  was 
an  outbreak  of  small-pox,  to  which  the  Indian  settlements  were 


47 

always  extremely  liable,  and  that  Father  Lefranc  was  very 
active  in  baptizing  the  infants  and  small  children,  and  those 
persons  who  were  dangerously  ill;  but  even  under  these  cir- 
cumstances he  almost  apologizes  for  the  want  of  preparation  of 
his  catechumens.  Thus,  in  speaking  of  two  Indians  who  were 
dangerously  ill,  and  who  afterwards  died,  he  says  "  they  de- 
manded baptism  with  great  earnestness,  and  promised  to  be  in- 
structed and  to  live  as  Christians."  In  this  outbreak  of  the 
small-pox  there  are  certificates  by  Father  Lefranc  of  the  bap- 
tism of  at  least  thirty  children,  many  of  them  infants,  whom  he 
says  he  found  "  abandoned  and  dangerously  sick  with  the 
small-pox."  It  is  evident  that  there  was  a  great  panic  among 
the  natives  at  the  visitation  of  this  terrible  scourge,  and  that 
Father  Lefranc,  like  all  the  Jesuit  missionaries  in  a  like  case, 
went  from  cabin  to  cabin  in  the  Indian  village,  seeking  out  the 
sick  and  dying.  Although  it  does  not  exactly  appear  (at  least 
not  to  me,  who  cannot  tell  the  diffel-ence  between  Ojibway  and 
Ottawa  names),  I  think  it  is  probable  that  this  pestilence  oc- 
curred in  the  Indian  village  nearest  the  fort — that  of  the  Ojib- 
ways,  upon  the  Island  of  Mackinac. 

As  I  have  suggested  before,  the  thoroughness  of  the  in- 
struction is  evidenced  by  the  character  of  many  of  the  lay  en- 
tries which  were  made  during  the  long  absence  of  the  priests 
from  the  church.  Here  is  a  literal  translation  of  the  one  most 
elaborate.  It  is  of  the  marriage  of  a  man  of  whom  I  shall 
have  something  more  to  say  hereafter. 

"In  the  year  1779,  the  first  of  January,  before  noon,  we,  the 
undersigned,  on  the  part  of  Sieur  Charles  Gautier  de  Vier- 
ville,  Lieutenant-Captain  and  interpreter  of  the  King,  son  of 
Claude   Germaine   de  Vierville   and   of    Therese   Villeneuve, 


48 

his  father  and  mother,  deceased,  and  of  Magdeleine  Chevalier, 
daughter  of  the  late  Pascal  Chevalier  and  of  Madeline  Darch 
Eveque,  her  mother;  in  order  to  confirm  the  alliance  which  a 
virtuous  love  mutually  leads  them  to  contract  together,  and  to 
crown  the  fires  that  mutual  tenderness  has  lighted  in  their 
hearts,  before  our  Mother,  the  Holy  Church,  of  which  they 
are  members,  and  in  the  bosom  of  which  they  wish  to  live  and 
die,  have  gone  to  the  house  of  Sieur  Louis  Chevalier,  uncle 
of  the  future  bride,  to  remove  every  obstacle  to  their  desires, 
and  to  assure  them,  so  far  as  in  us  lies,  of  days  full  of  sweet- 
ness and  of  repose.  There,  in  the  presence  of  the  future  hus- 
band and  wife,  of  their  relations  and  of  their  friends,  we  have 
placed  upon  them  the  following  conditions,  namely :  The  said 
future  husband,  in  the  dispositions  required  by  the  Holy 
.Roman  Church,  and  according  to  the  order  which  she  has  im- 
posed upon  her  children,  promises  to  take  for  his  wife  and 
legitimate  spouse  Magdeline  Chevalier,  who,  upon  her  part, 
receives  him  for  her  husband  and  legitimate  consort,  having 
the  full  and  entire  consent  of  all  their  relatives.  In  virtue  of 
this,  the  husband  (taking  the  wife  with  all  her  rights  for  the 
future  in  that  part  of  her  heritage  which  is  due  to  her,  and 
which  must  be  delivered  to  her  at  the  first  requisition,  to  be 
held  in  common),  in  order  to  increase  the  property  of  his 
bride,  and  to  show  by  it  the  extreme  tenderness  which  he  has 
for  her,  settles  upon  her  the  sum  of  a  thousand  crowns,  taken 
from  the  goods  w^hich  they  shall  acquire  together — in  order  to 
provide  for  the  necessities  which  the  accidents  of  life  may 
perhaps  cause  to  arise.  The  future  spouses,  to  assure  for  the 
alliance  which  they  are  contracting — peace,  repose  and  the 
sweets  of  well-being  to   the  last  moment  of  their  lives — will 


49 

and  consent,  in  order  that  they  may  taste  without  trouble  the 
felicity  that  they  look  for,  that  their  property  should  be  pos- 
sessed by  a  full  and  entire  title  by  the  survivor  after  the  death 
of  one  or  the  other,  to  be  given  alter  the  death  of  such  sur- 
vivor to  their  children,  if  Heaven,  favorable  to  their  desires, 
accords  them  these  w^orthy  fruits  of  their  mutual  love;  but  if 
the  survivor  wishes  to  contract  a  new  alliance,  in  that  case  the 
contracting  party  must  account  to  inheriting  children,  and  di- 
vide with  them.  If  Heaven,  deaf  to  their  voice,  shall  refuse 
them  a  legitimate  heir,  the  last  survivor  may  dispose  of  all  the 
goods  according  to  his  or  her  will  and  pleasure,  without  being 
molested  by  the  relatives  either  of  one  or  of  the  other.  This, 
they  declare,  is  their  will  while  waiting  to  approve  and  ratify 
it  before  a  notary,  and  to  supplement  the  ceremonies  of  mar- 
riage by  a  priest,  when  they  shall  have  the  power  to  do  it." 

The  provisions  here  concerning  property  disposition  are  ac- 
cording to  the  "  custom  of  Paris,"  so-called,  w^hich  governed 
in  matters  of  municipal  law  these  Canadian  colonies. 

There  are  many  other  marriage  records,  not  so  elaborate, 
but  not  less  sufficient  to  prove  the  validity  of  the  act,  despite 
the  absence  of  the  priest. 

Of  course,  it  was  one  of  the  first  matters  impressed  by 
the  priest,  both  upon  those  who  were  of  Christian  descent  and 
upon  converts,  that  lay  baptism  was  not  only  permissible  but  de- 
sirable in  cases  of  emergency  or  danger,  and  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing, therefore,  to  find  that  situated  as  these  people  were,  the 
larger  proportion  of  the  baptisms  of  children,  when  they  came 
to  be  performed  by  the  priests,  were  conditional  baptisms.  That 
is,  the  priest  supplied  the  ceremonies  of  baptism  and  baptized 
them  on  condition  "  that  they  had  not  already  been  baptized," 


50 

as  in  a  very  great  number  of  cases  they  undoubtedly  had 
been  by  their  parents  or  friends.  No  very  sufficient  register 
of  the  numerous  lay  baptisms  made  when  there  was  no  priest 
at  the  mission  was  kept,  but  of  course  there  are  some  recorded. 
A  good  many  of  them  were  either  made  by  the  commandant  at 
the  post,  by  a  justice  of  the  peace,  or  by  a  notary  public,  and 
certified  to  under  his  title,  by  the  person  administering  the  rite. 
I  have  no  idea  that  this  was  from  any  feeling  upon  the  part  of 
the  parishioners,  simple  minded  though  they  were,  that  these 
official  gentlemen  were  any  better  qualified  to  administer  the 
sacrament  than  others,  but  because  they  reasoned  that  if  a 
record  was  to  be  made  at  all  it  had  best  be  made  under  the 
name  and  signature  of  those  best  able  both  to  make  it  and  to  se- 
cure its  preservation.  Some  of  them  read  a  little  curiously. 
There  are  a  few  in  English  which  form  the  only  exception  to  the 
almost  universal  French  in  the  record. 

Upon  page  73  appears  this  in  French:  "  On  the  30th  day 
of  August,  1 78 1,  was  baptized  Domitille,  the  legitimate  daugh- 
ter of  Sieur  Charles  Gautier  and  Madeline  Pascal  his  legiti- 
mate wife,  born  the  same  day  at  noon.  John  Coates,  Notary 
Public." 

This  is  the  child  of  the  pair  whose  nuptials  we  noted  above. 

Then  occurs  this  in  English :  "  I  certify  you  that  according 
to  the  due  and  prescribed  order  of  the  church  at  noon  on  this 
day,  and  at  the  above  place,  before  fivers  witnesses,  I  baptized 
this  child  Charlotte  Cleves.  Patrick  Sinclair,  Lieutenant 
Governor  and  Justice  of  the  Peace.  Witnesses:  (Signed) 
William  Grant,  John  McNamara,  George  Macbeth,  D.  McRay, 
George  Meldrum." 

I  think,  however,  of  the  things  shown  by  the  record  itself 


51 

that  which  interested  me  most  is  the  light  which  it  throws  upon 
the  question  of  slavery,  both  of  Indians  and  of  negroes,  in 
these  north-western  posts,  during  the  last  century  and  the 
beginning  of  the  present. 

I  have  not  had  the  time  to  carry  on  such  an  investigation  as 
I  would  like  to  make  concerning  its  incidents  and  its  character, 
but  one  thing  is  certain,  it  must  have  been  a  firmly  established 
and  cherished  institution  despite  the  boast  to  the  contrary  that 
has  sometimes  been  made.  The  negro  slaves  belonging  to 
various  persons  in  the  community  are  frequently  spoken  of  in 
the  register.  Sometimes  it  is  a  child  of  two  negro  slaves  who 
is  baptized,  sometimes  it  is  two  negro  slaves  who  are  married. 
Thus,  in  1744,  Father  Coquarz  certifies  to  "baptizing  the 
daughter  of  Boncoeur,  a  negro,  and  of  Margaret,  a  negress, 
belonging  to  a  trader  named  Boutin,  obliged  to  winter  at 
Mackinac  on  his  way  to  the  Illinois." 

Frequently  the  word  "  esclave  "  is  used  where  it  is  impos- 
sible to  determine  whether  the  slave  spoken  of  is  red  or  black. 
I  was  much  puzzled  for  a  long  time  by  the  use  of  the  words 
"  Panis  "  and  "  Panise,"  evidently  intended  from  their  connec- 
tion to  signify  a  male  or  a  female  servant  of  some  kind,  and  as 
they  were  spoken  of  as  ^'-belonging''''  to  various  people,  I 
inferred  that  they  signified  slaves.  What  sort  of  slaves  I  could 
not  ascertain,  for  in  no  French  dictionary,  either  of  ancient  or 
modern  French,  could  I  find  any  such  word.  The  words  did 
not  seem  to  be  used  at  all  as  the  name  of  a  tribe,  or  as  a  proper 
name,  but  rather  as  though  they  signified  servants  held  as 
slaves  under  some  different  sort  of  tenure  from  that  denoted 
by  the  word  "  esclave,"  and  this  I  thought  at  first  must  be  so. 
I  discovered  finally  their  real  signification.  They  are  corrupted  or 


52 

alternative  forms  of  "  Pawnee,"  and  are  evidently  used  to  signify 
"  Indian  "  slaves  as  distinguished  from  "  negro  "  slaves. 

A  note  which  I  have  found  in  the  Wisconsin  Historical  Col- 
lections, purporting  to  be  taken  from  the  memoir  of  one  Bou- 
gainville, published  in  France,  concerning  the  state  of  Canada, 
says,  that  "the  Panis  "  (evidently  Pawnee)  "tribe  in  America 
is  in  the  same  position  as  that  of  the  negroes  in  Europe." 
"  The  Panis  tribe,"  the  author  says,  "  is  a  savage  nation  situated 
on  the  Missouri,  estimated  at  about  twelve  thousand  men.  Other 
nations  make  war  upon  them  and  sell  us  their  slaves.  It  is 
the  only  savage  nation  that  can  be  thus  treated." 

Most  of  the  Indian  slaves  who  are  mentioned  in  the  register, 
were,  at  the  time  of  such  mention,  which  is  generally  that  of 
their  baptism,  quite  young  children.  I  think  that  they  were 
in  most  cases  given  or  sold  to  the  French  or  half-breed  traders 
and  voyageurs,  by  the  Ottawas  who  had  captured  or  bought 
them.  Whether  they  were  all  Pawnees  or  not,  I  think  very 
doubtful.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  as  the  word  "  slave  " 
became  generic  because  so  many  "  Slavs "  were  sold,  the 
word  "  Panis  "  among  the  Ottawas  and  Ojibways  was  applied 
indiscriminately  to  any  slave  of  any  tribe  because  the  majority 
of  such  slaves  were  Pawnees.  However,  this  is  all  conject- 
ure on  my  part. 

There  are  two  interesting  entries  in  the  register  concerning 
slaves  belonging  to  the  church. 

On  page  29  of  the  baptismal  register  appears  this  certificate : 
"To-day,  upon  the  i6th  of  April,  the  Feast  of  the  Annuncia- 
tion of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  in  the  year  1750,  I  have  solemnly 
baptized  in  the  Church  of  this  Mission,  Jean  Francois  Regis, 
a  young  slave  of  about  seven  j^ears,  given  through  gratitude  to 


53 

this  mission  last  summer  by  M.  Le  Chevalier,  upon  his  safe 
return  from  the  extreme  West,  the  said  infant  being  well  in- 
structed and  asking  baptism.  His  godfather  was  Sieur 
Etienne  Chenier  and  his  godmother  Charlotte  Parent.  Done 
at  Michilimackinac  the  day  and  year  aforesaid.    P.  Du  Jaunay." 

Upon  page  59  occurs  the  following:  "  To-day,  Holy  Satur- 
day, the  loth  day  of  April,  in  the  year  1762,  I  have  solemnly 
baptized  a  young  negro  about  20  years  of  age,  belonging  be- 
fore yesterday  to  this  mission;  sufficiently  instructed  even  to 
serve  the  Holy  Mass.  After  which  he  made  his  first  com- 
munion. In  baptism  the  name  of  Pierre  was  given  to  him. 
His  godfather  was  Jean  Baptiste  called  Noyer,  voyageur,  and 
his  godmother  Mdlle.  Martha  Cheboyer.  Done  at  Michili- 
mackinac the  day  and  year  aforesaid."  This  was  signed  by 
Father  De  Jaunay.  It  was  a  gracious  act  to  give  the  poor 
negro  his  freedom  before  baptism. 

A  monograph  upon  the  subject  of  slavery  in  these  trading 
posts  of  Mackinac,  Detroit,  Green  Bay,  Prairie  du  Chien  and 
Chicago,  its  origin,  rise,  decline  and  extinction,  and  its  character 
and   incidents,  it  seems  to  me  would  be  extremely  interesting. 

One  matter  of  which  I  would  like  to  ascertain  the  date  is 
that  of  the  extinction  of  Indian  slavery.  The  allusions  to  the 
Pawnee  slaves  become  more  and  more  infrequent,  and  finally 
before  the  close  of  the  book  cease  altogether.  Father  Rich- 
ard states  of  an  Indian  whom  he  baptized  that  he  was  "  au 
service  "  of  Charles  de  Langlade,  but  he  never  uses  the  word. 
"  slave." 

Morgan  L.  Martin  in  a  historical  address  at  Madison  some 
years  ago  said  that  he  saw  in  1827  a  Pawnee  woman  at  Green 
Bay,  who  within  a  few  days  of  that  time  had  been  a  slave,, 
but  that  she  then  was  free. 


54 

One  other  thing  I  think  of,  which  as  a  suggestion  springing 
from  this  register  occurs  to  me  might  be  worked  up  in  an  in- 
teresting manner,  and  that  is,  a  discussion  of  the  methods  and 
course  in  which  the  administration  of  justice  was  continued 
from  the  French  dominion  through  the  English  occupation  into 
the  time  when  the  United  States  took  possession  of  the  coun- 
try. I  do  not  think  that  this  register  throws  any  particular 
light  upon  it,  although  there  is  one,  Adhamer  St.  Martin,  whose 
entries  appear  as  a  justice  of  the  peace  during  all  three  of 
these  periods.  He  subscribed  himself  as  one  of  the  "  Justices 
of  the  Peace  of  his  Majesty  "  in  March,  1796,  the  American 
troops  not  having  then  arrived  at  the  post,  although  it  had 
been  long  before  distinctly  agreed  that  the  United  States  should 
have  jurisdiction  over  Mackinac.  After  that  for  a  time  he 
calls  himself  "Justice  of  the  Peace  of  this  district,"  and  then, 
still  later,  in  1797,  he  says  he  is  a  "Justice  of  the  Peace  of 
the  United  States."  It  may  very  well  be  that  he  received  a 
renewal  of  his  commission,  but  the  records  and  the  traditions 
of  Green  Bay  are  very  clear  to  the  fact  that  there  some  at  least 
of  the  officers  commissioned  by  the  English  Government  did 
not  cease  to  exercise  their  functions,  nor  did  the  inhabitants 
care  to  question  their  jurisdiction  although  they  received  no 
accession  of  authority.     It  may  have  been  so  also  at  Mackinac. 

So  far  as  the  mere  contents  of  the  register  go,  I  will  call 
your  attention  to  but  one  other  matter,  and  that  is  to  two  or 
three  allusions  which  are  contained  in  it  to  Chicago.  It  was  not 
till  after  the  close  of  the  entries  in  this  register  that  Chicago 
became  any  thing  to  the  people  of  Michilimackinac,  but  an  out- 
post known  as  the  Chicago  portage,  but  now  that  this  great 
city  is  here,  it  naturally  becomes  interesting  to  find  the  refer- 


55 

ences  to  it  in  such  a  record  as  this.  The  first  that  I  noticed  is 
in  the  abridgment  from  the  preceding  record,  with  which  this 
register  opens. 

For  upon  the  19th  of  April,  1735,  it  appears  that  there  was 
baptized  Louis,  slave  of  Monsieur  de  Chignaucourt,  aged 
twenty  years.  Beneath  the  entry,  in  bitterness  of  heart,  the 
priest  has  written  at  another  time,  "  Rocambole^  -pj'esentement 
afostat  et  sauvagise  a  Chikago^'^  which  may  be  translated  "a 
humbug,  at  present  an  apostate,  and  relapsed  into  savagery 
at  Chicago."  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  at  a  ver}^  early  time 
Chicago  was  getting  a  bad  name  at  other  places  as  the  resort 
of  the  criminal  classes. 

In  June,  1846,  Father  de  Jaunay  certifies  that  he  baptized 
"  Louis,  the  legitimate  son  of  Amiot  and  of  Marianne  his  wife 
of  this  post;  the  said  infant  having  been  born  at  the  river 
Aux  plains,  near  to  Chikago,  early  in  October  last.  The 
godfather  was  Mr.  Louis  de  Lecorn,  captain  commanding  for 
the  king  in  this  post.  The  godmother  was  Madame  Marie 
Catherine  de  Laplante,  wife  of  Monsieur  Bourassa." 

This  was  a  white  child;  for  Arhiot  appears  to  have  been  a 
French  trader.  Does  it  not  settle  the  question  as  to  the  "first 
white  native  of  Chicago  "  ? 

So  far  I  have  confined  myself  to  the  records  themselves, 
that  is,  to  what  they  by  and  in  themselves  may  be  considered 
to  show  or  suggest.  Pardon  me  if  for  a  few  moments  I  now 
consider  them  with  reference  to  the  interest  which  they  have 
for  us  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  knowledge  derived  from 
other  sources  concerning  the  men  who  figure  in  this  book, 
and  whose  handwriting  again  and  again  appears  through  it. 
So  considered,   there  will  be  no  lack   of  interest  in  them  to 


56 

those  to  whom  this  sort  of  historical  research  affords  pleasure. 
There  is  always  something  fascinating  in  contemporaneous 
records  and  signatures  of  persons  who  were  pioneers  in  this 
western  country,  and  whose  names  and  deeds  were  part  of  our 
early  history,  and  I  think  that  this  is  especially  the  case  where 
the  records  are  those  of  their  births,  baptisms,  marriages,  and 
deaths. 

It  is  not  particularly  to  the  priests  who  have  signed  the  cer- 
tificates in  these  registers,  to  whom  I  am  referring,  but  yet 
before  I  speak  of  other  names  more  interesting  still,  let  me 
call  your  attention  to  something  that  may  be  said  of  them. 

For  instance,  we  know  that  Father  de  Lamorinie,  who  makes 
the  first  contemporaneous  entry  in  this  register  in  1741,  was 
afterwards  at  the  mission  on  St.  Joseph  river  and,  being  driven 
-from  there  by  the  vicissitudes  of  the  French  and  Indian  war, 
went  to  minister  to  the  settlers  at  the  mission  of  St.  Gene- 
vieve, not  far  from  the  present  site  of  St.  Louis. 

By  virtue  of  an  infamous  decree  of  the  Superior  Council  of 
Louisiana,  an  insignificant  body  of  provincial  officers,  who  un- 
dertook in  1763,  to  condemn  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  to  sup- 
press the  order  within  Louisiana,  he  was  seized,  although  upon 
British  soil,  and  with  other  priests  from  Kaskaskia  and  Vin- 
cennes,  taken  to  New  Orleans,  and  sent  from  there  to  France, 
^with  orders  to  present  himself  to  the  Due  de  Choiseul.  This 
was  his  reward  for  the  zeal  and  assiduity  and  devotion  which 
he  had  manifested  in  his  mission. 

Father  Lefranc  and  Father  Du  Jaunay  were  then  left  alone 
^s  the  last  Jesuit  missionaries  in  this  western  country. 

Father  Du  Jaunay  was  at  Mackinac  at  the  time  of  Pontiac's 
conspiracy.     On  the   2d  of  June,  1763,  the  Indians  attacked 


57 

Fort  Mackinac,  massacring  most  of  the  garrison,  and  making 
prisoners  of  the  officers,  all  of  which  is  graphically  described 
in  Parkman's  History  of  the  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac.  By 
Father  du  Jaunay,  the  captured  Captain  Etherington  sent  a 
letter  shortly  afterwards  to  Major  Gladwyn,  who  was  then  be- 
sieged by  Pontiac  himself  in  the  fort  at  Detroit,  asking  for 
assistance  which,  however,  Gladwyn  was  powerless  to  give^ 
Du  Jaunay  went,  and  of  course  through  his  influence  with  the 
Indians  was  enabled  to  carry  the  note  into  the  fort.  Captain  Ether- 
ington says  of  him  in  his  letter :  "  I  have  been  very  much  obliged 
to  the  Jesuit  for  the  many  good  offices  he  has  done  on  this 
occasion.  He  seems  inclined  to  go  down  to  your  post  for  a 
day  or  two,  which  I  am  very  glad  of,  as  he  is  a  very  good 
man,  and  has  a  great  deal  to  say  with  the  savages  hereabout, 
who  will  believe  everything  he  tells  them  on  his  return." 
He  begs  him  to  send  the  priest  back  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble, as  they  will  be  in  great  need  of  him.  In  a  diary  of  the 
siege  of  Detroit,  published  in  the  Michigan  historical  collec- 
tions, it  appears  that  Father  Du  Jaunay  left  Detroit  upon  his 
return  upon  the  20th  of  June,  1763.  The  following  is  the 
entry  in  the  diary :  "  This  morning  the  commandant  gave  to 
the  Jesuit  a  memorandum  of  what  he  should  say  to  the  Indians 
and  French  at  Michilimackinac,  as  also  to  Captain  Ethering^ 
ton,  seeing  that  he  did  not  choose  to  carry  a  letter,  saying  that 
if  he  did  and  were  asked  by  the  Indians  if  he  had  one,  he 
should  be  obliged  to  say  yes,  as  he  had  never  told  a  lie  in  his 
life."  After  Father  Du  Jaunay  left  the  mission  at  Mackinac, 
he  became  superior  of  the  mission  at  St.  Joseph,  and  remained 
in  the  west  until  1774,  and  then  returned  to  France  to  die. 
In  1825  a  missionary  visiting  the  Indian    congregation  es- 


58 

tablished  at  Arbre  Croche,  remarked  that  the  memory  of  Father 
Du  Jaunay  was  religously  preserved  among  all  the  tribes,  and 
the  place  was  pointed  out  to  him  where  the  priest  used  to 
walk  while  saying  his  breviary. 

In  1822  the  chiefs  of  the  Ottawas  petitioned  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States  to  send  them  Jesuit  priests  to  take  the 
place,  they  said,  "  of  Father  Du  Jaunay,  who  lived  with  us  in 
our  village  of  Arbre  Croche,  and  cultivated  a  field  in  our 
territory  in  order  to  teach  us  the  principles  of  agriculture  and 
Christianity." 

Father  Gibault,  whose  entries  as  vicar-general  of  Louisiana 
and  Illinois  I  have  referred  to,  was  in  Kaskaskia  as  a  resident 
priest  in  1778,  and  undertook  then  a  mission  to  Vincennes  on 
behalf  of  George  Rogers  Clark,  and  succeeded  in  inducing  its 
inhabitants  to  declare  for  the  Americans. 

Gabriel  Richard  was  a  most  remarkable  man  in  very  many 
ways.  Coming  from  France,  a  Sulpician  priest,  in  1792,  he 
was  sent  by  Bishop  Carroll  of  Baltimore,  to  the  settlements  in 
the  Illinois  for  two  purposes.  First,  that  as  being  of  the  same 
race  and  language,  he  might  give  regular  pastoral  care  to  the 
French  and  Canadians  and  their  half-breed  descendants,  who 
had,  since  the  English  occupation,  fallen  into  such  sad  need  of 
it;  and,  secondly,  that  he  might  develop  and  encourage  in 
this  western  country  a  new  growth  of  the  Catholic  Church 
from  roots  that  should  strike  more  deeply  than  the  old 
French  missions  could  into  the  newly-born  American  life  and 
national  character.  In  1798,  after  labors  which  had  became 
more  and  more  fruitful  as  the  years  went  on,  he  was  withdrawn 
from  Illinois,  and  went  to  Detroit,  and  at  Detroit,  from  1794 
until  1832,  his  aim  and  main  work  lay.  To-day  his  statue  upon 


59 

the  noble  facade  of  the  city  hall  of  Detroit  preserves  for  its 
inhabitants  his  memory  as  one  of  the  first  and  most  impor- 
tant pioneers  of  Michigan. 

He  found  time  as  these  records  show  to  make  pastoral  visits 
to  the  almost  abandoned  Indians  and  half-breeds,  French  voy- 
ageurs  and  traders  in  all  the  Indian  missions  about.  But,  as 
I  have  said,  his  main  work  was  at  Detroit.  He  was  there 
given  a  free  hand.  He  enlarged  and  improved  all  the  paro- 
chial and  mission  schools;  he  opened  an  academy  of  a  very 
high  class  for  the  higher  education  of  women;  he  instituted  and 
carried  on  a  theological  seminary;  he  supplied  his  schools  with 
chemical  and  astronomical  apparatus,  no  easy  task  at  the  time 
in  which  he  did  it.  In  1807,  realizing  that  English  and  the 
English  tongue  were  always  to  be  in  the  ascendency  in  Amer- 
ica, he  established  a  series  of  English  sermons  to  be  given 
every  Sunday  in  the  council  house  of  the  then  newly  established 
Territory  of  Michigan. 

In  1802  he  imported  from  Europe  for  his  church  in  Detroit 
the  first  organ  that  was  ever  brought  to  the  Northwest. 

During  the  war  and  after  the  surrender  of  Detroit,  the  Eng- 
lish imprisoned  him  upon  the  ground  that  he  was  instigator  and 
exciter  of  anti-English  feeling. 

In  182 1,  as  we  have  seen,  he  was  at  Mackinac  and  he  also 
went  to  Green  Bay.  I  do  not  know,  but  I  cannot  help  con- 
jecturing that  he  was  a  passenger  in  the  second  trip  ever  made 
by  a  steamboat  upon  Lake  Michigan  or  Lake  Huron.  It  is 
certain  that  the  pioneer  steamer,  Walk-in-Water,  left  Detroit 
for  Mackinac  upon  July  31,  182 1,  and  that  Father  Richard 
appears  to  have  reached  Mackinac  just  about  the  time  the 
steamer  did,  in  the  early  days  of  August.     It  certainly  would  be 


6o 

quite  in  accordance  with  his  character  to  have  the  desire  to 
make  this  trip.  If  he  did,  he  had  for  a  companion  the  Reverend 
Eleazer  Williams,  so  well  known  in  connection  with  his  claim 
to  be  the  son  of  Louis  XVI.  and  the  Dauphin  of  France. 

In  1823  Father  Richard  was  elected  as  a  delegate  to  Con- 
gress from  the  territory  of  Michigan,  the  only  instance  in  which 
a  Catholic  ecclesiastic  has  been  offered  or  accepted  such  a  po- 
sition. While  in  Washington  he  became  a  great  favorite 
amongst  his  colleagues  and  in  the  society  of  the  capital.  He 
made  at  least  one  important  speech.  It  was  concerning  a  pro- 
posed appropriation  for  a  military  road  from  Detroit  to  Fort 
Dearborn  and  the  mouth  of  the  Chicago   River. 

In  1832,  in  a  visitation  of  the  Asiatic  cholera  at  Detroit, 
Father  Richard,  then  almost  seventy  years  old,  devoted  himself 
so  constantly  to  the  sick  and  dying,  as  to  cause  him  finally,  en- 
tirely worn  out,  to  succumb  to  the  dread  disease.  By  his 
dying  bed  were  the  saintly  Fenwick,  his  bishop,  and  his 
younger  friend  and  disciple,  Frederick  Baraga,  who  after- 
wards became  the  bishop  of  Marquette,  and  was  destined  to 
revive  in  his  own  person  the  glories  of  the  very  greatest  and 
earliest  of  the  Indian  missionaries. 

Of  the  numerous  laymen,  soldiers,  traders  and  voyageurs, 
whose  names  and  signatures  appear  frequently  in  this  register, 
and  concerning  whom  history  has  more  or  less  to  say,  per- 
haps the  most  striking  and  interesting  figure  is  Charles  Michel 
de  Langlade.  The  record  of  his  baptism  appears  in  the 
abridgment  of  the  old  register  preserved  at  the  beginning  of  this, 
by  which  it  appears  that  Charles  Michel  de  Langlade,  son  of 
Monsieur  de  Langlade,  was  baptized  upon  the  9th  of  May, 
1729. 


6i 

Father  Lefranc,  in  1754,  certifies  '-that  upon  the  12th  day 
of  August,  1754?  ^^'  ^  missionary  priest  of  the  company 
of  Jesis,  received  the  mutual  consent  to  marriage  of 
Le  Sieur  De  Langlade  and  Charlotte  Ambroisine  Bourassa, 
both  inhabitants  of  this  post,  in  the  presence  of  the  under- 
signed witnesses."  To  this  certificate  are  subscribed  the 
names  of  the  principal  inhabitants  of  Mackinac  at  the  time, 
including  that  of  "  Herbin,"  commanding  at  the  post.  Mad- 
emoiselle Bourassa  was  the  daughter  of  an  Indian  trader  of 
substance  and  standing,  recently  removed  to  Mackinac  from 
Montreal.  The  register  shows  that  he  must  have  had  a  large 
family,  and  both  Indian  and  negro  slaves. 

Following  the  marriage,  occur  at  intervals,  careful  certifi- 
cates of  baptism  of  various  children  of  Monsieur  and  of  Mad- 
ame de  Langlade,  and  in  the  capacity  of  godfather  and 
witness,  Charles  de  Langlade  has  left  his  signature  scores  of 
times  in  this  register. 

I  do  not  know  whether  any  of  you  are  familiar  with  his  life 
but  it  is  one  of  the  most  romantic  and  stirring  of  any  of  our 
pioneers  in  the  West,  and  he  is  known  among  the  inhabitants 
of  a  neighboring  state  as  "  the  founder  of  Wisconsin."  His 
father  was  Augustin  Langlade,  who  was,  at  a  very  early  pe- 
riod in  the  eighteenth  century,  a  fur  trader  at  Mackinac. 
Augustin  Langlade  married  a  sister  of  the  principal  chief  of 
the  Ottawas,  and  Charles  de  Langlade  was  therefore  a  true 
half-breed. 

His  early  education  in  letters  was  undoubted^  one  of  the 
cares  of  Father  Du  Jaunay,  but  his  early  education  in  arms 
was,  at  the  solicitation  of  his  savage  uncle,  intrusted  to  him. 
In  1734,  being  then  but  five  years  old,  he  was  allowed  by  his 


62 

father,  under  the  entreaties  of  the  Indians  who  had  taken  a 
fancy  to  him,  to  accompany  a  war  expedition  of  his  uncle 
against  a  tribe  allied  to  the  English,  his  father  adjuring  him 
upon  sending  him  away,  to  show  no  fear.  When  he  was  six- 
teen years  of  age,  his  father  and  he  estabHshed  a  trading  post 
at  Green  Bay,  Bay  des  Puants,  as  it  was  called  in  those  days. 
And  from  that  time  the  son  resided  alternately  at  Green  Bay 
and  at  Mackinac,  when  he  w^as  not  absent  upon  his  numerous 
military  expeditions. 

Against  the  Sacs  and  Foxes,  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  Otta- 
was,  Langlade  made  frequent  expeditions  after  the  establish- 
ment at  Green  Bay  was  made,  to  protect  the  new  settlement 
or  to  revenge  and  punish  depredations. 

In  1755  ther^  broke  out  the  Seven  Years  War.  The  French 
government  wisely  undertook  to  secure,  in  order  to  aid  the 
regular  troops  and  the  Canadian  militia,  a  contingent  of  the 
savages  and  coureurs  de  bois,  who  were  to  be  found  about 
the  different  trading  stations.  The  command  was  entrusted  to 
Charles  de  Langlade.  United  to  the  savages  by  the  ties  of 
blood,  by  the  similarity  of  habits,  famihar  with  their  language 
and  with  their  modes  of  warfare,  of  proven  courage  and  abil- 
ity, Langlade  was  exactly  the  man  for  the  situation.  He  or- 
ganized a  troop  of  at  least  1,500  Indians  and  half-breeds,  who 
rallied  willingly  under  the  French  flag  against  the  hated  Eng- 
lish. Among  his  followers  is  believed  to  have  been  the  chief- 
tain afterwards  so  famous,  Pontiac,  but  this  is  by  no  means 
certain.  This  most  effective  body,  Langlade  led  to  Fort  Du 
Quesne,  and  upon  the  9th  of  July,  1755,  ^bout  half  of  his  force, 
with  him  at  its  head,  together  with  250  Frenchmen  under 
Beaujeau,  who  commanded  at  Fort  Du  Quesne,  marched  out 


63 

from  the  post  and  surprised  upon  the  Mononghela  river,  the  army 
of  Braddock,  numbering  at  least  2,000  men.  The  terrible 
rout  of  the  English  army  upon  that  day  is  too  well  known  to 
need  re-telling.  George  Washington,  who  was  present,  in 
command  of  the  Virginia  militia,  could  only  say  of  it,  "  we  are 
beaten,  shamefully  beaten,  by  a  handful  of  savages  and  French- 
men." 

The  share  of  De  Langlade  in  this  victory,  the  honor  of 
which  really  entirely  belongs  to  him,  has  not  been  sufficiently 
recognized  by  historical  writers,  who  make  Beaujeau  its  hero, 
but  the  contemporary  accounts  leave  no  doubt  in  my  mind  of 
his  rightful  claim  to  the  distinction.  General  Burgoyne,  in  a 
letter  to  Lord  George  Germaine,  in  1777,  speaking  of  Indian 
allies  whom  he  expected,  says:  ''  I  am  informed  that  the  Ot- 
tawas  and  other  Indian  tribes,  who  are  two  days'  march  from 
us,  are  brave  and  faithful,  and  that  they  practice  war,  and  not 
pillage.  They  are  under  the  orders  of  Monsieur  de  Langlade, 
the  very  man  who,  with  his  troops,  projected  and  executed 
Braddock's  defeat." 

In  1756  Langlade  was  put  in  charge  of  a  detachment  of 
French  and  Indians,  and  made  numerous  expeditions  from 
Fort  Du  Quesne.  In  1757  he  came  back  from  the  west  at  the 
head  of  several  hundred  natives  and  joined  Montcalm,  and  after 
that  summer's  campaign  he  received  from  the  Governor  of 
Canada  (Vaudreuil)  orders  to  report  at  the  post  in  Mackinac 
as  second  in  command  to  Monsieur  Beaujeau,  who  was  a 
brother  of  his  old  comrade  at  Fort  Du  Quesne. 

In  1759  Langlade  left  Michilimackinac  for  Quebec  at  the 
head  of  a  body  of  Indians,  and  joined  the  army  of  the  Marquis 
de  Montcalm.     It  is  evident  that   there  were  times  before  the 


64 

fatal  day  above  the  Plains  of  Abraham  on  the  13th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1759,  when,  had  his  advice  been  followed,  the  army  of 
Wolfe  might  have  been  entirely  destroj^ed,  but  he  was  not 
allowed  the  use  of  that  discretion  which  had  proved  so  valuable 
upon  the  Monongahela.  He  was  at  the  battle  on  the  13th  of 
September  and  had  two  brothers  shot  by  his  side.  Six  days 
afterwards  Quebec  surrendered.  Langlade  thought  the 
capitulation  cowardly,  and  retired  in  disgust  to  Mackinac, 
where  he  found  awaiting  him  a  lieutenant's  commision  in  the 
French  army  signed  by  Louis  XV.  Again  Langlade  joined 
the  army  and  was  present  at  the  last  victory  of  the  French  and 
Canadians  on  the  28th  of  April,  1760,  upon  the  same  field 
where  Montcalm  had  been  previously  defeated.  But  the  end 
was  approaching,  and  the  hopelessness  of  the  cause  being 
recognized,  Langlade  was  sent  with  his  Indian  troops  back  to 
the  west,  where  shortty  after  he  received  the  following  letter 
from  Vaudreuil: 

"Montreal,  Ninth  of  September,  1760. 

"  I  inform  you,  sir,  that  I  have  to-day  been  obliged  to  capit- 
ulate to  the  army  of  General  Amherst.  This  city  is,  as  you 
know,  without  defenses.  Our  troops  were  considerably  di- 
minished, our  means  and  resources  exhausted.  We  were  sur- 
rounded by  three  armies,  amounting  in  all  to  twenty  thousand 
men.  General  Amherst  was,  on  the  sixth  of  this 
month,  in  sight  of  the  walls  of  this  city.  General  Murray 
within  reach  of  one  of  our  suburbs  and  the  army  of  Lake 
Champlain  was  at  La  Prairie  Longueil. 

"  Under  these  circumstances,  with  nothing  to  hope  from  our 
efforts,  nor  even  from  the  sacrifice  of  our  troops,  I  have  ad- 
visedly decided  to  capitulate  to  General  Amherst  upon  condi- 


65 

tions  very  advantageous  for  the  colonists,  and  particularly  for 
the  inhabitants  of  Michilimackinac.  Indeed,  they  retain  the 
free  exercise  of  their  religion;  they  are  maintained  in  the  pos- 
session of  their  goods,  real  and  personal,  and  of  their  peltries. 
They  have  also  free  trade  just  the  same  as  the  proper  sub- 
jects of  the  king  of  Great  Britain. 

"  The  same  conditions  are  accorded  to  the  military.  They 
can  appoint  persons  to  act  for  them  in  their  absence.  They, 
and  all  citizens  in  general,  can  sell  to  the  English  or  French 
their  goods,  sending  the  proceeds  thereof  to  France,  or  taking 
them  with  them  if  they  choose  to  return  to  that  country  after 
the  peace.  They  retain  their  negroes  and  Pawnee  Indian 
slaves,  but  will  be  obliged  to  restore  those  which  have  been 
taken  from  the  English.  The  English  General  has  declared 
that  the  Canadians  have  become  the  subjects  of  His  Brittannic 
Majesty,  and  consequently  the  people  will  not  continue  to  be 
governed  as  heretofore  by  the  French  code. 

"In  regard  to  the  troops,  the  condition  has  been  imposed 
upon  them  not  to  serve  during  the  present  war  and  to  lay 
down  their  arms  before  being  sent  back  to  France.  You  will 
therefore,  sir,  assemble  all  the  officers  and  soldiers  w^ho  are  at 
your  post.  You  will  cause  them  to  lay  down  their  arms,  and 
you  will  proceed  with  them  to  such  seaport  as  you  think  best, 
to  pass  from  thence  to  France.  The  citizens  and  inhabitants 
of  Michilimackinac  will  consequently  be  under  the  command  of 
the  officer  whom  General  Amherst  shall  appoint  to  that  post. 

"  You  will  forward  a  copy  of  my  letter  to  St.  Joseph  and  to 
the  neighboring  posts,  in  order  that  if  any  soldiers  remain 
there  they  and  the  inhabitants  may  conform  thereto. 

"  I  count  upon  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  in  France  with  all 
your  officers. 


66 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  be  very  sincerely,  Monsieur,  your  very 
humble  and  very  obedient  servant, 

"  Vaudreuil." 

In  1 761  the  English  arrived  at  Fort  Mackinac.  The  English 
officer,  Etherington,  invited  Langlade  to  reside  as  before  at  the 
fort,  and  conferred  with  him  upon  all  questions  of  local  admin- 
istration, a  precaution  which  proved  thereafter  of  great  ser- 
vice. In  1763,  in  the  conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  Fort  Mackinac 
was  surprised  by  the  Indians  and  the  English  massacred.  But 
before  that  event  Langlade  had  occasion  to  warn  Etherington 
in  vain.  He  was  present  in  the  fort  at  the  time  of  the  massacre 
but  could  do  nothing  to  arrest  it.  Immediately  afterwards, 
however,  learning  that  Etherington  and  his  second  in  command 
were  prisoners  and  about  to  be  burned  at  some  distance  from 
the  fort,  he  organized  a  little  band  of  Ottawas,  loyal  to  him- 
self, and  rescued  the  prisoners,  defying  the  drunken  victors  to 
oppose  him. 

Etherington  while  a  prisoner  delegated  his  authority  at  the 
fort  to  Langlade. 

When  the  Revolutionary  war  broke  out  Charles  Langlade, 
then  almost  fifty  years  of  age,  was  induced  by  the  English,  his 
old  enemies,  to  attempt  to  secure,  in  the  interest  of  the  English, 
all  the  Western  Indians  and  to  raise  an  auxiliary  force  of  In- 
dians for  use  in  the  war.  He  joined  Burgoyne's  army  in  July, 
1777.  Burgoyne  afterwards  complained  of  the  conduct — not 
of  Langlade,  but  of  the  savages  he  led — but  Langlade  and  his 
comrade  St.  Luc  declared  that  the  fault  lay  not  with  the  sav- 
ages but  with  Burgoyne  and  his  want  of  tact  and  justice. 

In  1778,  Langlade  raised  an  expedition  to  reinforce  Lieuten- 
ant Governor  Hamilton,  who  was  marching  upon  Colonel  George 


67 

Rogers  Clark,  after  the  latter  had  taken  possession  of  the  region 
of  the  Illinois.  Langlade  secured  the  assistance  even  of  the 
Indians  whom  the  English  commandant  at  Fort  Mackinac, 
De  Peyster,  called  that  "  horrid  refractory  set  of  Indians  at  Mil- 
waukee." But  the  expedition  was  disbanded  upon  its  arrival 
at  St.  Joseph,  on  the  reception  of  news  that  Hamilton  had  sur- 
rendered to  Clark. 

For  his  services  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  Langlade  was 
given  a  pension  by  the  English  Government.  He  remained 
superintendent  of  the  Indians  until  his  death,  holding  thus  an 
office  which,  as  I  understand  it,  came  from  the  United  States 
Government,  as  well  as  a  pension  from  England. 

He  died  in  Green  Bay  in  1800,  at  the  age  of  seventy-one 
years.  He  could  enumerate  ninety-nine  battles  and  skirmishes 
in  which  during  his  life  he  had  taken  part,  and  expressed  in 
his  later  years  regret  that  he  could  not  have  rounded  the  even 
century. 

In  the  course  of  this  paper  I  have  quoted  in  full  the  marriage 
certificate  of  Charles  Gautier  de  Vierville.  He  was  the  nephew 
of  Langlade,  and  almost  equall}^  as  distinguished.  I  shall  not 
have  time  to  sketch  his  life  for  you,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  say 
that  he  fought  with  his  uncle  upon  the  Plains  of  Abraham, 
that  he  was  constantly  employed  during  the  Revolutionary  War 
in  keeping  the  Northwestern  Indians  in  line  with  the  English 
interest,  that  for  his  services  in  war  and  Indian  diplomacy  he 
was  given  a  commission  as  captain  by  the  English  govern- 
ment, and  that  after  the  Revolutionary  War  and  before  the  ces- 
sion of  Mackinac  to  the  Americans  he  was  the  interpreter  for 
the  Indians  at  the  post.  In  1798  he  went  amongst  the  earliest 
settlers  to  Prairie  du  Chien,  and  there  his  descendants  married 


68) 

and  lived,  and  to  day  are  its  leading  citizens  in  influence  and 
position. 

Langlade's  second  daughter  married  Pierre  Grignon,  and  he, 
too,  figures  in  this  register  in  man}^  different  characters.  He 
was  an  Indian  trader,  who  also  became  one  of  the  very  early 
settlers  at  Green  Bay,  where  one  of  his  sons  was  living  a  re- 
spected citizen  in  i860  or  thereabouts.  There  are  many  inter- 
esting things  that  could  be  said  of  him,  but  want  of  time  for- 
bids. One  thing,  however,  related  by  his  son,  Augustine  de 
Grignon,  a  few  years  before  his  death,  finds  confirmation  in 
this  register.  In  1 787  you  may  remember,  Father  Payet,  as  I 
have  said,  made  a  visit  to  Mackinac.  Pierre  Grignon  was 
then  at  Mackinac,  and  he  deemed  it,  as  a  good  Catholic,  a  satis- 
factory opportunity  to  have  his  children  baptized  by  a  priest, 
and  his  own  marriage  with  M'lle  De  Langlade  confirmed  and 
ratified  by  the  same  authority.  He  therefore  sent  a  messen- 
ger to  Green  Bay  and  Madame  Grignon  and  six  small  child- 
ren, varying  in  ages  from  six  months  to  ten  years,  were  con- 
veyed to  Mackinac  in  a  birch  bark  canoe,  a  distance  of  almost 
two  hundred  and  fift\'  miles.  When  they  arrived  there  they 
were  duly  baptized  "  under  condition  "  (for  in  all  probability 
the  ceremony  had  been  properly  enough  performed  by  lay 
hands),  and,  as  the  register  sets  forth.  Father  Payet  conferred 
upon  the  father  and  mother  the  sacrament  of  marriage  after  (I 
quote)  "  having  received  the  mutual  consent  that  they  had  al- 
ready given  in  the  presence  of  witnesses  while  awaiting  an  op- 
portunity to  ratify  their  alliance  before  an  approved  priest  and 
several  witnesses,  according  to  the  custom  and  as  it  is  ordered 
by  our  Mother,  the  Holy  Church." 

Pierre  Grignon  was  evidently  a  thorough-going  man,  for  a 


69 

few  days  after  this  marriage  and  baptismal  ceremony  he  hunted 
up  and  brought  to  the  priest  a  natural  son  of  his  by  a  savage 
mother,  and  had  him  also  baptized.  The  boy  was  then  thir- 
teen  years  of  age. 

Upon  the  twenty-third  day  of  May,  1763,  two  children  were 
baptized  by  Father  Du  Jaunay,  and  he  certifies  in  the  entry 
that  one  was  the  son  of  a  woman  named  Chopin,  formerly  a 
slave  of  Monsieur  Le  Chevalier,  but  since  sold  to  an  English 
merchant  ("commercant")  named  "  Henneri,"  "  which  woman,, 
although  not  yet  baptized,  has  protested,  in  presenting  her 
child  for  holy  baptism,  that  she  had  never  had  any  other  faith 
than  that  of  the  Holy  Church,  Catholic,  Apostolic  and  Roman, 
and  that  her  new  master  had  promised  not  to  constrain  her  on 
the  subject  of  religion."  Ten  days  after  this  baptism,  occurred 
the  frightful  massacre  at  Fort  Mackinac,  and  this  English  mer- 
chant, called  "  Henneri,"  had  a  hard  time  of  it.  He  has  left  a 
little  book  from  which  Parkman,  in  his  conspiracy  of  Pontiac, 
has  drawn  his  entire  account  of  the  massacre.  It  is  entitled 
"  Alexander  Henry's  Travels."  He  was  the  only  English 
trader  who  escaped,  and  he,  only  after  almost  incredible  suffer- 
ings and  dangers,  and  through  the  assistance  of  a  friendly 
Indian.  He  was  concealed  at  first  in  the  house  of  Langlade. 
It  would  seem  from  Henry's  account  that  although  Langlade 
protected  him,  he  was  none  too  well  disposed  toward  him,  but 
Langlade's  conduct  was  praised  by  Etherington  and  Leslie, 
and  the  prejudice  which  Henry  shows,  I  think  must  have 
sprung  from  seeing  Langlade  so  cool  and  unconcerned  regard- 
ing his  own  safety  while  he  (Henry)  was  in  such  desperate 
peril.  In  his  book  he  gives  an  account  of  one  moment  dur- 
ing the    massacre   which  vividly    impresses    my    imagination. 


70 

The  Indians  in  the  fort  were  furiously  cutting  down  and 
scalping,  while  yet  living,  every  Englishman  they  could  find. 
Langlade  was  standing  at  his  window  calmly  gazing  at  the 
scene.  Henry  managed,  by  climbing  a  fence,  to  secure  an 
entrance  to  Langlade's  house,  and  in  despair  rushed  to  him 
begging  for  protection.  Langlade  turned  to  him  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  again  directing  his  gaze  from  the  window, 
calmly  answered  "  And  what  do  you  think  I  can  do?"  To 
Henry  this  seemed  a  piece  of  cruel  heartleesness,  but  after  all 
Henry  was  concealed  in  Langlade's  house  and  afterwards 
saved,  and  I  think  it  more  probable  that  Langlade's  question 
arose  not  so  much  from  a  want  of  sympathy  and  compassion  as 
from  that  invincible  coolness  which  had  braved  death  too  many 
times  to  consider  it  for  any  one  the  worst  thing  that  could  be- 
fall him. 

There  are  many  mentions  and  signatures  in  this  record  of 
Jean  Baptiste  Beaubien,  afterwards  one  of  the  settlers  at  Mil- 
waukee and  Chicago,  and  of  Alexis  La  Framboise,  who,  I 
think,  was  afterwards  buried  under  the  church  at  Mackinac 
Island.  La  Framboise  was,  long  before  Juneau,  a  settler  at  the 
present  site  of  Milwaukee.  I  would  like  to  speak  of  him 
further,  but  have  not  time. 

I  will  close  this  paper,  already  too  long,  with  two  or  three 
stories  about  another  old  pioneer  in  this  western  country,  whose 
name  appears  in  the  latter  part  of  these  registers. 

Under  the  direction  of  Father  Richard,  in  182 1,  an  election 
w^as  held,  according  to  the  Canadian  custom,  of  marguilliers, 
(a  sort  of  wardens),  for  the  parish  church  at  Mackinac. 
Among  those  first  elected,  it  was  certified,  was  Joseph  Rollet, 
whose  name  also  appears  in  the  register  as  a  witness  to  several 


71 

acts  of  marriage  and  of  baptism.  He  declined  to  act.  I  suspect 
that  he  did  not  care  to  incur  the  possible  necessity  of  pecuniary 
contribution  which  the  ofHce  would  impose  upon  him.  Joseph 
Rollet  was  one  of  the  earliest,  if  not  the  very  earliest,  pioneer 
at  Prairie  du  Chien.  He  was  a  very  noted  Indian  trader  in 
this  north-western  country.  His  operations  extended  from  St. 
Louis  and  Prairie  du  Chien  to  the  Red  River  settlements.  He 
brought  his  goods  directly  from  Montreal  through  the  lakes  to 
Green  Bay  (of  course  stopping  at  Mackinac),  and  thence 
through  the  Fox  river  and  down  the  Wisconsin  in  a  fleet  of 
Mackinac  boats,  row^ed  by  French  Canadians.  He  became 
finally  such  a  great  power  in  the  country  that  he  w^as  called 
"  King  Rollet,"  while  the  Indians  named  him  "  The  Pheasant," 
on  account  of  his  fast  traveling.  He  may,  indeed,  have  de- 
clined the  position  of  marguillier  because  he  was  only  intermit- 
tently at  Mackinac,  although  in  182 1,  at  the  time  he  was  elected, 
he  had  changed  his  headquarters,  which  had  formerly  been  at 
Prairie  du  Chien,  to  Mackinac,  by  accepting  an  offer  from 
John  Jacob  Astor  to  join  him  in  the  American  Fur  Company, 
and  take  charge  of  the  trade  of  that  powerful  monopoly  in  the 
Northwest.  He  afterwards  again,  however,  changed  his  resi- 
dence to  Prairie  du  Chien,  where,  in  1827,  Governor  Cass  ap- 
pointed him  chief  justice  of  the  county.  He  is  said  to  have 
introduced  the  first  swine  and  the  first  sheep  into  Wisconsin, 
and  was  always  a  pushing,  energetic  and  enterprising  man.  In 
1 814,  being  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the  English  in  the 
existing  war  against  the  Americans,  he  raised  a  company  of 
militia,  and  in  connection  with  one  or  two  other  officers,  se- 
cured the  surrender  of  the  garrison  at  the  American  fort  at 
Prairie  du  Chien  and  took  them  to  Mackinac. 


72 

His  reputation  however  suffered  from  his  alleged  over- 
keenness  in  trading  with  the  Indians.  Among  other  stories  it 
is  related,  that  he  persuaded  some  simple  minded  Indians  (who 
held  to  the  belief  for  a  long  time),  that  the  weight  of  his  foot 
placed  in  the  scale — on  the  other  side  of  which  were  piled 
furs — was  exactly  one  pound.  Among  other  Indians  he  se- 
cured the  name  of  "five  more"  because  they  said,  let  them 
throw  off  what  number  of  skins  they  might,  in  bartering  for 
an  article,  his  terms  were  always  "  five  more." 

Mrs.  Kinzie  in  her  book  called  "  Waubun,"  tells  a  capital 
story  of  him.  A  lady  remarked  to  him  one  day,  she  says :  "  I 
would  not  be  engaged  in  the  Indian  trade.  It  seems  to  me  a 
system  of  cheating  the  poor  Indians."  "  Let  me  tell  you. 
Madam,"  replied  he,  with  great  earnestness,  "  it  is  not  so  easy 
a  thing  to  cheat  the  Indians  as  you  imagine.  I  have  been  try- 
ing it  these  twenty  years,  and  I  have  never  succeeded." 

One  more  story  of  him  which  accounts  for  my  suggestion 
of  his  reason  for  declining  the  appointment  of  marguillier,  and 
I  have  done. 

One  day  he  was  crossing  the  river,  it  is  said,  at  Prairie  du 
Chien,  and  the  ice  ran  very  heavily  and  very  swiftly.  He  be- 
came so  alarmed  for  his  safety  that  he  solemnly  vowed,  that  if 
spared,  he  would  devote  a  thousand  dollars  to  the  construction 
of  a  Catholic  church  at  Prairie  du  Chien.  After  hard  work, 
he  and  his  companion  (La  Framboise)  succeeded  in  getting 
through  the  ice  and  making  a  landing.  One  foot  was  yet  in 
the  boat  when  Rollet  exclaimed,  "  Collect  it  if  you  can.  You 
haven't  got  my  note." 


THIS  BOOK  I8^^B°^B10V? 

^^  OF  25  CENTS 

WlL-l-  BE  ASSESSED  DU^' J^^e  foURTH 

DAY    AND    TO    »   •  _====== 

OVERDUE-  ^:===^ 


I,B.l-W0n..T,-40C6930») 


.•iOOllO 


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